The last few weeks have been full of thrills, spills and bellyaches and I’ve finally been able to find some time to step back into it and write this.
Over the Easter break, with my 9 year old son by my side, I caught the train to Sheffield, where I was having my first show in over three years, exhibiting two new vintage postcards in an exhibition titled The View at The Fronteer Gallery. The weather was glorious and we found time to visit other arts venues I’ve exhibited in a few years back. A real ego boost. Then came the bellyache! The next day Indy came down with a vomiting bug, putting the brakes on our plans for a bike ride in the sunshine.
Part of Auto Amor show, Auto Amor, Kent, April 2025. Photography by Jayson Lilley
Auto Amor Project Volume 1, Auto Amor Gallery.
When life returned to some semblance of normality, Ripley and I took a trip down to Dutton Green in Kent for the opening of the Auto Amor mystery painting exhibition. She was a trooper, especially as the trains were rerouted, complicating what should have been a relatively simple journey.
Anonymity was the theme behind Auto Amor. 50 artists received a blank canvas a fortnight before the exhibition in the post and had to return in time for the show with their impressions. No pressure, especially given oil paints take a while to dry! Thankfully my effort made it in on time and all works were displayed anonymously in the new gallery, which was converted from an old mechanics workshop. You can see all the works in the show here and maybe send me a message if you want to guess mine. Thanks to the friends who came along to the opening and no, they couldn’t spot my work.
After that thrill, came what was to become the predictable spill when my son went to hospital for an operation. It was a success, but his movement was restricted in convalescence and it took him a few weeks to recover. And just when there was light at the end of the tunnel, he took a nasty tumble in the school playground, so back to hospital. Don’t fight it, you just gotta ride that rollercoaster right? Thankfully he’s on the mend now and was able to help me construct my new stand up desk from which I’m writing this missive from.
Artist Katie Goodwin with some of her recent Scuzzy Landscape paintings, London 2025. Photo by Tom Trevatt
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
Ending on a thrill, at the start of June I got an email from the RA saying they had accepted one of my paintings for the summer exhibition running from 17th June to 17th August. I was told 18,000 artworks had been submitted, so another ego boost.
The painting is named puma.flab.sandwiches which is the what3words location of an indoor sports venue near Heidelberg, Germany. When I took the photo that inspired this painting, I was pushing my sleeping baby in a pram, where I was circling the football pitches in my battle to get my especially wired child in that moment to sleep. I can still recall the pungent smell of the rubber pitches. As a new mum, I was finding it increasingly hard to carve out time to create art so I took pictures as an instant form of sketching and remembrance. This photo eventually turned into a painting nine years later! If you’re going to the RA show, my piece is in Room VII.
REJECTS show
Oh and one more quick loop the loop. An unwelcome part of the life of an artist is the rejections from countless applications. The gallery Art Friend has turned this negative reality into a positive by making a show out of rejected works. Only one out of two of my paintings got into the RA hsow and so the rejected one my Skip in the Sky painting will be showing at REJECTS exhibition at Stokey Pop up on Stoke Newington High Street opening on 3rd July. To view the painting on their site and more details of the show
Also thank you to photographer Tom Trevatt who took some fantastic photos of me in the studio a few weeks ago.
Thanks for reading and here’s to more thrills, spills and bellyaches…