Artist

Miss Goffetown

Birthplace

Desio

Living in

Milan

Education

Architecture, Università Federico II di Napoli

Medium

Acrylic on fine art paper

My work does not carry a message. Rather, it is a necessity to bear witness to my experience every day and, at the same time, to enter in a dialogue with others

At first glance, Miss Goffetown's work seems to be anchored in her time; she paints with a childhood remnant the logbook of her time, especially the confinement, which she exhibits on the networks, she is part of the ultra-contemporary aesthetic of "almost nothing", she works in a community, surrounded by an architect and a ceramist, in the Spazio Martin studio, which is also used as an exhibition space in Loreto, a district of Milan in the throes of change. In addition to this, there are brushstrokes that are left visible, a palette of very bright, saturated colours that are unusually combined with neutral shades, a penchant for modest acrylics rather than prestigious oils, and a pseudonym that displays rather than asserts a distance from a certain posture of the artist (goffo means "clumsy" in Italian). That would be to remain on the surface. Behind these disjointed, gangly, faceless, bohemian-looking figures, captured in often uncomfortable poses that evoke the twisted bodies of representatives of the Vienna School such as Schiele or Kokoschka, the viewer perceives a deep questioning, a hedonism that is as lascivious as it is restless, a sensual torment tinged with pleasure where sparks of joy nevertheless remain possible. This obsessive exploration of the banal and the intimate - not a day goes by for Miss Goffetown without drawing - seems to echo the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's theory of the SINGOLARITÁ QUALUNQUE (whatever singularity) and his description of a community that comes, that is always coming, but that is not. One can also think of the non-localisable subject, which resists all attempts at determination, of the psychoanalyst Lacan. Identity remains in constant mutation, indefinable. But that is not why Miss Goffetown gives up trying to understand it. On the contrary, she goes in search of it. It is thanks to this state of mind that she allows herself the freedom to express an intention that might escape her. 

Text Sonia Pavlik