Preview: Rachel Goodyear, Catching Sight

About

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present a major solo exhibition by Rachel Goodyear, celebrating a brand new body of work. Though still rooted in her love of drawing, her new works introduce a greater freedom of experimentation with a range of materials such as ink, watercolour and collage as well as pencil and charcoal. She has also pushed the boundaries of her practice to experiment with scale, producing new works on paper, sculpture and an immersive installation.

Her enigmatic and enthralling figures are sourced from old magazines, books and anonymous photographs. Often solitary, they may be focused on some extraordinary task; others engage in bizarre and seemingly ritualistic activities. Whereas once, Goodyear’s visions emerged from an otherwise blank background, she now delights in creating backdrops of heavy and brooding washes of constructing psychologically charged spaces. Sometimes hooded or with their eyes covered, her figures resist our gaze. Welcome to a journey through the psyche; a world of fragments, false memories, fears and desires.

Goodyear’s brand new installation will incorporate projected animations and a musical score. Extending the dream-like pictorial space found in her drawings, the installation enables the viewer to enter an environment that is both alluring and sinister. Uniting many of the motifs, themes and preoccupations of her work, this piece reveals sparse landscapes where shrouded figures dance in the dark whilst oracles predict celebration and destruction.

A publication with an essay by Amy Sherlock accompanies the exhibition. Goodyear has also produced a limited edition of 50 lithographs which are available to purchase in the Gallery Shop.