Johanna Goodman

Artist Statement

“The Catalogue of Imaginary Beings is an ongoing series of work begun in 2015 that sprung from over twenty years of portraiture and collage work. Now at over 500 plates and in various media, the body of work seeks to explore a range of themes in popular culture including the role of the individual in fashion, in history, in the artistic imagination and more broadly, the collective consciousness.

The series draws its inspiration from a wide spectrum of sources including Magical Realism, Surrealism, and Symbolism. References include cultural artifacts such as talismans, idols, totems, and all of the material detritus that surrounds us. These characters are composites embodying notions of ‘the warrior,’ vulnerability, industry, the universal and the personal. They reference these identities as they’ve been depicted historically through art, literature and commerce.”

Bio

Johanna and her work have been featured in profiles in numerous publications including 3×3 Magazine, The Observer/Guardian in the UK, Marie Claire Maison and Le Courier International in France, Fahrenheit Magazine (Mexico), Tempo Travel (Turkey), and Metal Magazine (Spain), Frankie Magazine (Australia), and Uppercase Magazine. Her work has also been featured on design websites such as Vice, WePresent by WeTransfer, Adobe Create, Trendland, The Creative Review, This is Colossal, Inspiration Grid, The Green Box and Fubiz (France), and Ignant, Picame and Osso (Italy).

Her work has been included in several books including Collage by Women (Promopress Editions, 2019), The Age of Collage: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art (Gestalten, 2016), The Age of Collage 3: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art, (Gestalten, 2020), Every Body (Little, Brown & Co, 2020), and Rolling Stone, The Illustrated Portraits (Rizzoli, 2020) and Collage Your Life (Story Publishing, 2022).