Biography
Steph Goodger lives and works between Bordeaux, France and the UK. She exhibits widely in the UK and internationally. Goodger was a prize winner in the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize (2020), having previously exhibited in JMPP (2016 and 2004).
Recent exhibitions include ‘Art’s Ugly Right?’ at Danielle Arnaud, London; A Day in the Life, at School Gallery, Folkestone; Bed, at Durden and Ray, Los Angeles (2024); and Exceptional Faults, at APT Gallery, London (2024). Solo shows include Lusitania, at De Queeste Art, Belgium (2023); Carried on the Wind, at Cornerstone Gallery, Liverpool and School Gallery, Folkestone, the UK (2023).
Goodger has collaborated on many artistic and curatorial projects, including, Walking in Two Worlds, with Elysium Gallery, Swansea, Wales (2021-22); and Platforms Project, Int. Art Fair, Athens, in 2023 and 2024, with her curatorial platform, Pull Back the Curtain, in collaboration with Bella Easton’s BEASTON Projects, and Tiny Domingos, director of rosalux Berlin.
Goodger is represented by School Gallery, Folkestone and De Queeste Art, Belgium.
CV
Studies:
Master of Arts in Fine Art: University of Brighton (1999)
BA (Hons) in Fine Art: University for the Creative Arts – The Surrey Institute (1995)
Representation:
School Gallery, Folkestone since 2023
De Queeste Art, Watou, Belgium, since 2023
Exhibitions:
Solo :
Carried on the Wind, solo exhibition. School Gallery, Folkestone, July-October 2023
Lusitania. Solo exhibition.De Queeste Art, Belgium. April-May 2023
Carried on the Wind. Solo exhibition.Cornerstone Gallery, Liverpool. March-May 2023
Christie’s International, Solo Exhibition, Bordeaux. 2020
History’s Extras. Solo exhibition. Cornerstone Gallery, Liverpool. 2018
Duo :
Platforms Project, Independent International Art Fair, Athens. With Bella Easton, representing the platform, Pull Back the Curtain, 26-29 Octobre 2023
Histoire(s) de peinture, Bois Fleuri, Le Pôle Culture, Lormont, with Franck Garcia. 2020
Où tombe l’ombre, Le Forum des arts et de la Culture, Talence, with Jonathan Hindson. 2020
Nos Royaumes Perdus, Le Pôle Culture, La chapelle Saint-Loup, Saint Loubès, with Thomas Panival. 2017
Le Fantôme de la Peinture, Galerie Rez de Chaussée, Bordeaux, with Julian Rowe. 2017
Cherry Time, Elysium Gallery, Swansea, Wales, with Julian Rowe, 2016
I’d Like to See the Governor, Brewery Tap, Folkestone Triennial Fringe, with Julian Rowe, 2014
Group projects, exhibitions and competitions:
Art’s Ugly Right? Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London, 2025
A Day In The Life School Gallery, Folkestone, UK, 2025
Foreign Affairs Platforms Project, International Art Fair of Athens, Greece. 2024
Bed Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, USA. 2024
Exceptional Faults APT Gallery, Creekside, London. 2024
Brewers Towner International, Towner Eastbourne, Collective exhibition, and prize. 2022-23
Rogue Women II. Rogue Gallery, Manchester. Collective exhibition. May 2023
Tart Factory. Tart Gallery, Park Royal, Design District, London. April 2023
Walking In Two Worlds, collective exhibition. 2021-22. Oceans Apart Gallery, Manchester; CARN, Caernarfon, Wales; Volcano Theatre Gallery, Swansea.
John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Gallery, Liverpool. 2020 (Prize Winner), 2016 et 2004
Every Day, Terrace Gallery, London. Collective exhibition. 2020
Creekside Open, APT Gallery, London. Exhibition and prize. 2019 et 2015
The London Group Open, The Cello Factory, London. Exhibition and prize. 2017, 2015 et 2013
Two-Fold, Oceans Apart Gallery, Manchester. Collective exhibition. 2019
Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London. Exhibition and prize. 2017 et 2015
Grand Prix de l’Institut Bernard Magrez, Bordeaux. 2017
Prizes
John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Gallery, Liverpool. Prize Winner. 2020
National Open Art Prize, Southeast of England Prize. 2014
Windsor and Newton Painting Prize, The London Group Open Exhibition. 2013
Publications, Interviews and Talks
Talk with Q&A, Carried on the Wind (28 mars 2023) The Capstone Theatre, Liverpool Hope University.
Considering Art Podcast (February 2023)
Lusitania: The Abyss, the Abyme and the Proscenium. Steph Goodger (2021) Junction Box 14
Inferno: A Few Thoughts Steph Goodger (2021) Junction Box 16
John Moores Painting Prize 2020: Meet the Prize Winners(2021) 6:37 / 19:52
Elysium Gallery Artist Talk - Steph Goodger (2020)
Statement
Narratives and narrative images are raw material. Breaking up narratives and re-cycling the pieces, this process often starts with cutting up and manipulating existing images, such as archival photographs or images of my own work, through digital collage, combined with drawing, to disrupt and transform.
I'm looking to form new schemas from the parts, to take into painting. The painting space is reactive and malleable, with infinite transformative possibilities. At one extreme there is the void, beyond landscape, entirely devoid of boundaries, and at the other there is the completely sealed interior. Both are terrifying.
Themes of conflict, forced displacement, states of limbo, oppression and encarcaration are expressed, broadly speaking, through the conventions of landscape and the interior. Formative early encounters were with Gericault’s, The Raft of the Medusa, Max Beckmann’s, Bird Hell and The Departure, as well as Danté’s Inferno, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and the poetry of T.S. Eliot. These and innumerable other influences fuelled a passion for painting and literature, as well as a fascination for the legacy of history.
My grandfather's experience in WWI has in a sense always accompanied me. Theatres of war, photojournalism, propaganda, and witness bearing led me to also discover the photographers of the Paris Commune (1871), such as Eugene Disderi and Eugene Appert, and writers such as Emile Zola and Walter Benjamin, who mentions the barricades of The Commune in, The Arcades Project.
The imaginative and heavily coded spaces of Medieval cosmology, manifest in church painting and manuscripts, as well as Ukiyo-e (Floating World), Japanese woodblock printing of the Edo Period, have inspired an approach of both imaginative freedom and aesthetic order. This is visible in a remarkable way in the work of my favourite war artist Paul Nash.
Steph Goodger 2025