Artist Statement

Mar Goman is a mixed-media artist who has always worked with a wide range of materials and media and her artwork does not fit into any one category. She often uses materials from nature, cast offs from a consumer society, and a variety of recycled and repurposed materials. These materials range from pieces of rusty metal, old books and book pages, sticks and stones, bones, buttons, bottles, boxes, vintage fabrics and objects, and many other items. Her work includes drawing, painting, embroidery and sewing, book arts, sculpture and assemblage, textiles, and collage. She describes herself as a ‘thing maker’ and the objects she makes have an aggressively hand-made look.

Mar’s work is generally based on her own psycho-spiritual journey, which incorporates wisdom from many different traditions, as is reflected in the pieces. She is influenced by Outisder art, Naïve Art, and Art Brut as well as tribal art. This work is made purely for the purposes of its maker, and is not influenced by the art market or the art world. However, though it may seem contradictory, she is also influenced by contemporary art and artists.

Several series are included in this show, including her series of dresses, which serve as stand-ins for the female figure, and pieces from her “Pharmacy of the Soul” series. The dresses range from doll-sized to larger than life-sized and are covered with things such as buttons, rusty metal, lines of poetry, or an assortment of found objects. “Pharmacy of the Soul” consists of a variety found boxes and old cabinets filled with an assortment of scrolls and altered bottles. Also included in the show will be altered books, embroideries, and other hand-made objects.

please join us!
Poetry Reading and Discussion with Mar Goman and Judith Arcana

Saturday, May 1, 2010
7 :30pm

Mar Goman & Judith Arcana will close this month’s show of Mar’s work, which includes Judith’s poems, with a reading and discussion. Judith will perform the poems used in Maternity Dress – one of Mar’s large pieces, pictured at left – along with some of her own related work plus poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, Sharon Olds, and other poets. She and Mar will discuss collaboration across art forms – describing how Maternity Dress and other works have evolved/developed between the two of them – and talk with the gallery audience. Copies of What if your mother, Judith’s poetry collection most prominently used in “Maternity Dress,” will be available for sale.

Artist Biography

Mar Goman was born in 1947 and grew up in Fall City, Washington. In 1979 she returned to the Northwest to attend graduate school at Portland State University and soon after established her studio in Portland. She has been showing her work around the Northwest since 1981.