New York-based artist, Johanna Goodman, is known for her eye-popping collages and quirky illustrations. Having studied at Boston University’s School of Fine Art and Parsons School of Design (NYC), where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration in 1992, she has been working as a freelance Illustrator ever since.
Her work has garnered awards from The Society of Publication Design, American Illustration, and Communication Arts, with clients that include The Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York, The Museum of Natural History, The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, Le Monde, and The New York Times, to name a few.
“I grew up in a converted barn on Long Island,” she told AI-AP. “My parents weren’t artists by trade but they were definitely latent artists. They were pretty unconventional and had a reverence for art and artists—they both hung around with the Pop artists in the 60s and went to art openings all the time before I came along and ended that party. We had a lot of art around the house and I spent a whole lot of time drawing. Once, in kindergarten, my friend asked me for my autograph on a drawing I made for her. Drunk on power and fame I decided I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. Since then it’s been all power and fame (or all drunk—I can’t remember).”
Talking about her artistic process, Goodman explained: “I have a few different styles. For years I’ve been making my illustrations by painting in oil and in ink. It’s been a long enough time that I feel totally comfortable in the medium. I do a lot of portraits, though not exclusively. I’ve always had a thing for faces and I looove painting likenesses. I will never tire of that. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, when working on a portrait I start to feel a real connection to the subject and I get on a whole empathetic humankind-we-are-all-one kind of trip.”
“On the other hand, my collages are relatively new and I really dig the process of not being able to plan ahead too much and not knowing what I’ll find to use next. It’s really intuitive and surprising and sometimes totally confounding which is a real treat.”
Her Instagram page is, indeed, a real treat!
