Brenda Goodman: The Sum of Its Parts
-
Installation shots
-
Overview
Brenda GoodmanStudio 2, 2023Oil on wood panel36 x 50 inches
91.4 x 127 cmSikkema Malloy Jenkins is pleased to present The Sum of Its Parts, a solo exhibition of paintings by Brenda Goodman, on view from February 12 through March 21, 2026. An opening reception with the artist will be held on Thursday, February 12, from 6–8 pm.
For nearly sixty years, Brenda Goodman has created deeply expressive works at the intersection of abstraction and figuration. Her practice is guided by a relentless drive to experiment, wielding the formal qualities of paint—tactile impasto, gauzy veils of color, and built-up surface textures—to conjure realms of psychological confrontation and physical expression.
The works on view in The Sum of Its Parts span the 1970s to the present day. The Race (1973), a large-scale oil painting from early in Goodman’s career, depicts a central triangular figure affixed with paintbrushes in place of arms and legs. Scrawling—walking—across a canvas laid out on the floor, the bulbous figure evinces a vulnerability rooted in the human desire to create, express, and communicate. Alongside The Race are several studio paintings from 2023 and a recent series of drawings depicting a collection of treasured objects and artworks housed in a corner of Goodman’s living room. Drawn from life while the artist recovered from a hand injury at home, Goodman’s drawings balance narrative interiority with intricate spatial arrangements and a newfound lightness of medium.
The second gallery presents a group of oil paintings on wood created within the past two years. These abstract works feature vibrant, geometric configurations interspersed with dimensional forms and varying textural fields. Diminutive quotations of earlier paintings, such as the mosaic-like fragments nestled within Beyond My Dreams (2025) and No Obstacle Is Too Big (2025), act as portals to other dimensions, or entry points into the larger, ever-evolving chronology of Goodman’s practice. The Sum of Its Parts places these artistic shifts and intimacies in conversation with one another, united by Goodman’s enduring sense of material, form, and space.
Brenda Goodman (born 1943, Detroit, Michigan) received her BFA from the College of Creative Studies. Her career began as a member of the famed Cass Corridor Movement in the 1960s, and her work has been the subject of over forty solo exhibitions, including a retrospective in 2015 at the College for Creative Studies and Paul Kotula Projects in Ferndale, Michigan.
Goodman’s work is included in the public collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan; the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Chicago, Illinois; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York. Goodman lives and works in Pine Hill, New York.
-
Works
-
