Drawn to Know (2000)

Further exploring our innate curiosity and fascination for other people, and the contact possible through looking, Goodwin has created the three sequences of images, entitled Drawn to Know, in which he works with photographs of strangers he has taken surreptitiously in public spaces. These individuals have been caught at moments of introspection.

Approaching these small portraits, the viewer becomes aware of how Goodwin has traced and worked with the contours and subtleties of the individual heads and faces, replacing each original photograph, eventually totally working over them with drawing done with a digital stylus and tablet. In Drawn to Know - 14 X Woman fourteen frames, taken from video footage tracking a woman as she is passed by, are closely examined. In the matrix of drawn marks Goodwin holds and considers this fleeting encounter longer.


 
 
Drawn to Know (2000) - 14 x Woman - Selection of frames

 
 
In an attempt to discover, and make familiar, these tracings simultaneously create a fictionalisation of each character. As with Drawn to Know - 6 X Man where he traces the same photograph six times delicately shifting the quality of the man's character each time.

 
 

 
 
Drawn to Know (2000) - 6 x Man - Installation shots

 
 
Furthermore as with Drawn to Know - 12 X People the viewer moves along the sequence involving themselves with each individual, starting their own unique speculation about, for example, factual details such as age, where each individual may come from, their profession, as well as assessing them physically and emotionally. The veil of drawn marks imposed on these people by Goodwin complicates and distorts the usual dynamic between a viewer and the person in a portrait photograph. The drawing on these photographs acts as an ever present remnant of Goodwin's own time investment, a by product of the processes of thought about these essentially unknowable individuals.
 


 
 
Drawn to Know (2000) - 12 x People - Installation Shots
 
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