BARRIE GODDARD

BOUGAINVILLEAS - " BARET'S BOSSA - 2019 An installation of 60 pastel drawings as part of the " BLOOM " Exhibition at the West Thebarton Gallery, , Nov.7th - Dec.15th 2019. A long fascination with Bougainvilleas, particularly their intense, vibrant & exuberant colours was coupled with the remarkable story of Jeanne Baret ( or Bare ), who discovered the plant, became an inspiration for these works. Baret was the assistant to Philbert Commerson the botanist to admiral and explorer Louis de Bougainville, who led the first French expedition to circumnavigate the world (1766 - 1769).As a member of Bougainville's ship's company on this voyage, Baret, disguised as a man, for half the journey, became the first recorded women to circumnavigate the globe. It is a compelling story of survival and determination on the high seas. She was a gifted herbalist whose quest to catalogue and study new plants was motivated by an interest in their medicinal rather than floral properties.

      
John Neylon's essay titled
      " Flower Power",

      
Adelaide Review, Dec. 2019.

      


      - - - - "The choice of "Baret's Bossa" as the
      title of Goddard's current series of 60 drawings is a nod to
      the influence that Bossa Nova music (particularly that of composer
      Antonio Carlos Jobim) has had on Goddard's attitude to making
      art. He says,"The Bossa Nova rhythms that often filled my
      studio as the series developed, are as intrinsic to Rio's Carnival
      as the colours of Bougainvilleas." And that's before he
      starts talking about his addiction to Hawaiian print shirts.
      In rendering his blooms the artist has returned to his roots
      as a disciplined draughtsman, underpinning richly-hued passages
      of pastel tones with coherent outlines that honour their source.

      
His adoption of a square
      format expresses a long-term interest in Japanese aesthetic codes
      which privilege a dynamic based on things exploding or radiating
      from the centre. Somewhere in this mix the Hawaiian shirts are
      having conversations with kimonos. And if you can stretch this
      far, try Goddard's suggestion that in these drawings Georgia
      O'Keefe is riffing with Ferdinand Bauer - to a Bossa Nova back
      beat of course. Somewhere in the audience is Goddard's muse in
      all this, the indefatigable Jeanne Baret, whose sharp eye, in
      all likelihood, brought the Bougainvillea to Aldinga (Moana)
      - and the world. "

 

    

    

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