Limbs and Carriage

Couches and mugs

Gordon Robichaux is pleased to present Couches and mugs, an exhibition of

recent paintings by Julia Goldman. This is the artist’s first exhibition at the

gallery, and her first solo presentation in New York since 2013. In conjunction

with the exhibition, Goldman produced an artist’s book with images of

paintings and drawings from this recent body of work and an accompanying

text.

Fragments are the only forms I trust

Door, 2021, oil on canvas, 32 x 30 inches

Couch, another, painted, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches

Exhibition Description

We can only touch on a surface, which is to say the skin or thin peel of a limit. – Jacques Derrida

The selected works present fragments that focus on intersecting themes of memory, touch, and the immediate physical environment.

The fragments suggest that they are part of something bigger and that, if brought together, can give us intimate views into the personal histories of their makers. We are surrounded by fragments and memories of a life lived. They tell stories in pieces weighted with emotion and significance. Recorded and unrecorded moments weave together through scenes and revelations of the narrator’s life.

We can’t touch without being touched. When we grasp or brush against an object, we are as close to it as we can possibly be. Touch often leaves a memory trace — without much conscious awareness — that persists long after the physical sensation is gone. We may not be able to express how something felt, but we will be able to recognize it by holding or seeing it again. By creating replicas of reality, memories become objects in the artists’ imagination. They isolate elements like windows, screws, plants, car door handles, album covers, or newspapers as imperfect traces of the past. The visual immediacy and resonance of these objects are the starting point for an exploration in introspection.

Louis-Philippe Van Eeckhoutte is a curator based in Belgium. Since 2020 he has been a guest lecturer at the Royal College of Art in London. He is the founder of the online interview series Drawing Room Play. He was curator of the first edition of Generation Brussels and co-curator of the 7th edition of Currents at Z33 in Hasselt. He has curated projects for dépendance, Brussels and Carlier Gebauer, Berlin and was a member of the acquisition committee for The Constant Glitch at M Leuven.