Richard GOODWIN
As we walk into the up-cycled meatworks where Richard Goodwin lives, the first impression is of a cabinet of curiosities splayed horizontal. On one table stands an intricate balsa wood model for a newly commissioned house, its elliptical roofs nestled upon each other like interlocked carapace. There are paintings with mechanical equipment jutting from their splattered surfaces. There are machines exploding, suspended by elegant metal rods. And then, on other densely packed tables are models for hypothetical high-rise buildings that protrude with the artist’s signature alien interventions: his parasites.
There is also a matte black drum kit, a relic of the early years in London and New York seeing punk bands and carving his way out of performance art into his hybrid genre of sculpture, architecture and drawing. Usually a studio quickly reveals a sole aesthetic imperative, but not this one.
Born in Sydney in, the artist describes the shock of seeing a once-active teenage boy fused to metal rods that support his skull and spine. The meeting point between the human body and the machine made an indelible impression on a sensitive young man poised to study architecture.
