Past Exhibitions

Currents is a gallery space dedicated to recognizing the work of emerging and evolving California artists. Featuring a different artist every two months, Currents presents a range of media, styles, and genres. 

"I create sculptures that explore the intricacies of human anatomy, from the cellular level to the limb. By casting a critical, scientific, and humorous eye on the mutagenesis of corporeal form, I am telling a surreal story of biology. It is a visceral investigation of the perversity of nature, the role of science, and how our bodies both effect and are affected by the world around us.

With this series, I am focusing my thoughts on the ocean. As a dive instructor for many years, my love for the Pacific Ocean, its quiet crackle deep below the surface, has left a deep imprint upon me. Warming waters are threatening this ecosystem, and this body of work explores human interconnectedness with our oceans and seas, our reliance upon them and their reliance upon us. The starfish are growing fingers to claw their way out of the warming waters, coral reefs are bleaching, the overpopulation of urchins is devouring kelp forests, and lab clamps with human fingers firmly grasp sea life, threatened by microplastics, examining them, dissecting their secrets. Humans are intricately involved in all of these changes.

Working primarily with epoxy, resin, rubber, wax, and plaster, I let the concept and piece dictate the media. Combining traditional materials in unique ways, I cast, build, and assemble parts resulting in forms that are unexpected and occasionally disturbing.

The complex beauty of human form and function, the impact of life sciences on all living things, the processes of aging, how our bodies physically interpret the environment, and the interplay between art and science are themes that continue to weave their way through my work.

These are surreal science projects of the imagination." – Annette Goodfriend

For more information about Goodfriend and her work, visit her website HERE.

About the Artist

Annette Goodfriend was born and raised in Northern California. She completed her undergraduate degree at U.C. Berkeley, where she studied Genetics and Art, and received her M.F.A. at the California College of the Arts.

Goodfriend is a winner of the International Art Competition Premio O.R.A. Italia, the Malamegi Lab International Art Prize, and is one of 18 artists from 15 countries whose work was chosen for the YICCA International Art Prize. She is the recipient of the Discovered Award, partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and was honored with residencies at the Morris Graves Foundation and the Headlands Center for the Arts.

Her sculpture has been exhibited and published in galleries, museums, and books nationally and internationally. Goodfriend lives and works in Sonoma, California with her husband, son, and menagerie.

Annette Goodfriend (b. 1965), Anemone, 2017, silicone rubber, fiberglass, twine, 18 x 14 x 8 in. Courtesy of the artist. © Annette Goodfriend