Miles Cleveland Goodwin 'In The Belly of the Beast (Searching for a Heart)'
Fully illustrated catalogue to accompany the solo exhibition 'In the Belly of the Beast (Searching for a Heart)' by Miles Cleveland Goodwin at Anima Mundi, St Ives
Fully illustrated catalogue to accompany the solo exhibition 'In the Belly of the Beast (Searching for a Heart)' by Miles Cleveland Goodwin at Anima Mundi, St Ives
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Miles Cleveland Goodwin
In The Belly of the Beast (Searching for a Heart)
“There were two crows sat on a tree,
Lardy hip tie hoddy ho ho
There were two crows sat on a tree,
And they were black as crows could be.
Lardy hardy hip tie hoddy ho ho
The old he-crow said to his mate:
What shall we have to-day to eat?
There lies a horse in yonders lane,
Whose body has not very long been slain.
We’ll press our feet on his breast-bone,
And pick his eyes out one by one.”
‘The Two Crows’
from ‘Folk Songs of English Origin Collected
in the Appalachian Mountains’, sung by
Ada Maddox, May 3, 1918
1
“I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind
earth” - William Faulkner
Miles Cleveland Goodwin’s deeply rooted
upbringing in the American South is of
inescapable significance when viewing
the extraordinary, phantasmagoric
realism and haunting naturalism of his
emotive and deeply personal artwork.
The artist frequently and unsentimentally
evokes themes of nature, presence,
solitude and mortality - conjuring a stark
and ambivalent beauty of a place that
is often simultaneously unsettling yet
deeply soulful, evocative of what the
Romantic poet Alfred Tennyson claimed
as “red in tooth and claw”. As Goodwin
humbly states “My instinct is to salvage
the forgotten and unappreciated and
elevate the discarded. I want to paint
things that have a spiritual integrity -
paintings that attempt to show the truth
of life. My painting is all that I have to let
the world know how I feel. I’m not very
good with other forms of communication.
I feel a responsibility to be a public
servant, to show you things with love, no
2
doubt coloured by a melancholy soul.”
Born in Biloxi, Mississippi and now living
in Georgia in the Appalachian Mountains,
Goodwin’s form of ‘Southern Gothic’
authentically embraces familiarity with
complex mystery and contradiction,
where the seen and unseen reflect
the tension and harmony which exists
between realms of realism and the more
supernatural. Goodwin’s unsentimental
vision reflects both personal and wider
histories, truths and narratives, hinting
at underlying and persistent trauma and
struggle, where some of the ghosts that
haunt the past, linger into the present.
His symbolic visions never shy away from
darker or more uncomfortable aspects or
remnants of reality where the subject of
slavery, racism, fear of the outside world,
inequity, violence or the grotesque, could
be addressed in an attempt to seek a
form of transcendence, thus embuing his
works with an overriding sense of hope
acquired through their ultimate seeking
of truth.
Joseph Clarke, 2024
3
Sunday
oil on linen, 122 x 61 cm
“This started out as a painting of an apple orchard on a clear
windy day in January. I worked with it for a while and decided it
needed some sort of figurative element in it. I initially painted a
scene with an older man as a caretaker for this girl, like a scene
in a dysfunctional family or something… it was a little creepy so I
decided to just use the girl and added some donkeys. There is such
a sense of peace I get when man and his machines aren’t about.”
4
5
6
Afterlife in the Garden
oil and blood on panel, 46 x 61 cm
“I’ve had an ongoing theme in my work, over the years, of trying
to repurpose somethings existence be it symbolically or physically.
I did this in this instance with a rabbit that my dog had killed.
I wanted to capture the beautiful colour of blood, so I skinned
the rabbit on this particular panel that I had gessoed white. I
then sealed the blood with varnish and painted a memorial to the
rabbit - It’s afterlife in the garden.”
7
Narcissus
oil on linen, 61 x 76 cm
“Spring wakes from its long dark sleep to cradle the figure born anew”
8
9
10
Peace Without Man
oil on linen, 41 x 51 cm
“I played around with different ideas for a while and eventually
I saw something that was absent - the man, the complicated man
with his complicated inventions.”
11
A Simple Life
oil on panel, 33 x 130 cm
“This piece was painted on an antique headboard as a symbol of
domestic union. It’s a painting about the life that I want with my
partner, a union in and with the simplicity of nature. A life that
feeds the soul.”
12
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14
Crow Spirit
oil on panel, 41 x 61 cm
“My neighbour down the road shoots the crows that get into his
corn. He then hangs them from a nearby branch to warn the other
birds to stay away. I took a couple of pictures of it to reuse in this
painting. I want it to know, which it probably never will, that it
lives a little more in a painting of mine.”
15
Cathedral of the Woods
oil on linen 76 x 102 cm
“This painting is about the beauty of nature, and the immense
spirituality that can be found with it.”
16
17
18
God Breathed
oil on panel, 69 x 46 cm
“As with many of my paintings, I learn new things about them over
time… this is particularly true with this one. At first I wanted
simply to paint the tension of the space between a sleeping wolf
and an unknowing lamb and his guardian. Then I began to see that
they could both be aware of each other and that what was existing
in the space is peace… true peace. I purchased an arched framed
mirror from an antique shop in Baltimore that I repurposed to be
this painting by cutting a panel for the frame.”
19
Night Watch
oil on panel, 50 x 61 cm
“I wanted to experiment with painting something at night, guided
by the dim light of the moon. It was a great joy to do so. This is my
hound dog Venus protecting the cows that we know from down the
road. I recently found out that she is three part hound.”
20
21
22
Deposition of the Church
mixed media on linen, 76 x 102 cm
“I was raised within the hypocrisy of the southern baptist church.
When one goes through the roller coaster of being brought up
within this, mixed with ones own progressive adolescent thinking
one becomes crucified in a way. The painting fuses the body of the
church with the cloth which carries you down from the cross that
they built.”
23
Country Church
mixed media on linen, 76 x 122 cm
“My uncle had a farm in north Mississippi for a while, and on that
farm before he had it, years back, lived a family of slaves. The tiny
house they lived in was 5 foot by nothing yet still had remnants
within which were rotting away deep in the pines. When I visited
him I would always go to this abandoned house and gather things
that I could reuse. The particular shirt that forms the body of the
church in the painting was found in the wall. Their house became
a church of sorts to my creativity. The graveyard around the church
in the painting was fashioned after a church graveyard about 10
miles down the road from it.”
24
25
26
A Corpse of Lightning
oil on linen, 89 x 61 cm
“Stagnant lightning is both awe inspiring and terrifying to me.
The use of the black line is an abstract feeling represented in a
literal way.”
27
Lightning
oil on linen, 51 x 41 cm
”This painting came about while I was watching a prank show
filmed in Nairobi. I saw this woman sitting on a bench. Her
expression, the colour of her clothes and the beautiful richness of
her skin against the white of the bench she sat on were all visually
inspiring. I took a screen shot and painted her from that. I made up
the background with that bolt of lightning which seems significant
although I can’t quite find the words as to why. Lightning is a
beautiful situation in nature where the effect comes from the
heavens down towards the earth.”
28
29
30
Old Man & The Sea
oil on linen, 152 x 102 cm
“Old Man and the Sea is a portrait of my uncle who was dying from
lung cancer, hence the holes in his torso where the feeding tubes
were placed. He died within days of me taking the photograph that
this painting was made from. His strength always amazed me in
life and all the more so in death. This is part memorial to him. The
background is from a picture I took of the Atlantic Ocean on a trip
I took to see my father for the last time… I wanted to intertwine
these two worlds… where both of my father figures reside. There
is something in the fragility of the body as it reaches its end that
was quite beautiful - the bluish red and magenta veins wrapping
around skin seeming to fade to white. The battle for the spiritual
seems to be lifelong. It’s amazing to me that everyone dies.”
31
Night & Day
oil on panel, 25 x 20 cm
“It just came to be, the day, the cat… the ruler of the sun. The
raven, the ruler of the night closest to the moon. Both the most
necessary of relationship.”
32
33
34
Planting Teeth
oil on linen, 36 x 28 cm
“For years I’ve had ideas where figures or forms are draped in long
pieces of cloth that cover their whole bodies leaving only the face
visible. I assume offering some form of protection. It came to me
one day to do that with a human skull. As I worked unconsciously
the teeth began to fall out so I thought we could plant them in to
the earth. I started this idea as an etching instead of a painting. I
own a small press which I dabble in from time to time, usually in
the summer when its warm out because my etching chemicals are on
a back porch housed in a 1960s green oven.”
....
35
Funeral (Carrying Sticks)
oil on linen, 76 x 102 cm
“We had a service for my uncle Eugene under an old oak tree in the
rain. Everyone was wet and cold. We all began throwing his ashes
on the land, where some even coated the Springer Spaniels, Buddy
and Duke. In the painting I put the family in a grave yard that
exists at the entrance to my current neighbourhood.”
36
37
38
Contemporary Painting
oil on linen, 56 x 71 cm
“This piece is about art. I wanted to make a symbolic painting about
something that is both precious to me and at continual risk. If you
compare a painting from say 1880 to one from the present you will
often see a huge discrepancy which could be seen as the presence or
absence of soul, something innate which is achieved through craft
and openness. This is often now compensated for by something more
cynical, ambivalent or throwaway. In the painting the infant is a
symbol of this innate innocence and potential, without layers and
within nature. Which is something to be cherished, yet no one is
there to guard and protect it from the flies which contaminate this
purity. The infant is at further risk of being drowned or washed
away by the waters of ambivalence. This suggests something about
the digital age that we find ourselves in and highlights something
of what we must protect.”
39
Hallucinations
oil on linen, 76 x 61 cm
“This painting owes its genesis to a painting by Huges Merle titled
‘The Lunatic of Etretat’ painted in 1871 where in the painting
the troubled subject cradles an inmate object as if it is an infant.
In my painting, I used an hallucination to reflect the subject
confused twisted mind. The scene is late autumn in the southern
Appalachians. I’m still learning about this one...”
40
41
42
Illumination
oil on panel, 61 x 81 cm
“I enjoy trying to create a new concept from a ubiquitous symbol.
Sometimes it seems to help me to see things in a new light. In a
more helpful way one needs to change their perspective, sometimes
quite literally, especially for craftsmen, in order to see things
clearly. Spiritually this is important I believe, so you gain a better
sense of empathy and understanding.”
43
Prodigal Son
oil on linen, 61 x 91 cm
“I’ve been trying to paint this story from the Bible for years,
looking for the right space but never captured it until I thought to
introduce the horse which acts in place of the family, drooling on
the poor man beneath. As if nature is saying, It’s part of the process
of achievement to fail, to be drooled on. It’s funny to me that the
man is actually playing with the spit, seemingly unaffected by it.”
44
45
46
Death of the Fairytale
oil on linen, 46 x 61 cm
“In a way this piece is similar to ‘Contemporary Painting’. The
lack of depth, story and the narrative in contemporary culture, in
particular painting, starves the witch and splinters the broom. The
detail and authenticity that subjects need in order to exist within
a story requires a deep appreciation for each. In essence perhaps
painters have less time for them anymore I suppose.”
47
The Witch & The Singing Snakes
oil on linen, 86 x 107 cm
“I’ve been toying with this image for a while. Snakes were writhing,
disguised as grass with their tongues in the place of seeds baiting
birds. I started this painting with the snakes exclusively but as is
often the case I realised it needed a figurative element. I stumbled
on the image of this model and knew it was perfect. It was puzzling
for some time trying to understand her relationship to these snakes
but eventually I realised she was sort of hypnotizing them.”
48
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50
The Mermaid
oil on linen, 61 x 81 cm
“Back in the early 2000’s I lived in the state of Oregon. It’s a
wonderfully rugged land… I wanted to set up a painting space
with that particular coastline in mind. I was trying to feel my way
for a subject when the figure just sort of appeared. I love how this
woman wants to be free from the bindings of the world, to escape
into the sea, to become a mermaid.”
51
The Black Unicorn
oil on linen, 68 x 122 cm
“Many paintings in this exhibition show my connections to the
mythic in art. A connection I have with a sense of escape from
the physical presented to us in thie day to day of our existence. I
want to travel to another place sometimes. A place that knows only
that which creates it. This painting is about beauty. Beauty is best
shown when the malnourished are given its strength.”
52
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Miles Cleveland Goodwin was born in Mississippi and lives and works in Georgia, in the
Appalachian Mountains, USA. He graduated from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in
Oregon in 2007 with a BFA in painting and printmaking. His work has been widely exhibited
in the US including at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, the Grace Museum and the Amarillo
Museum of Art among and can be found in collections worldwide including the Ogden
Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. ‘In the Belly of the Beast (Searching for a Heart)’
is his first solo exhibition at Anima Mundi.
56
Belly of the Beast
mixed media on linen, 122 x 76 cm
“When my uncle died he left me with many of his old books. I knew
he wanted me to read them but also knew I probably wouldn’t.
So, to respect his desire I used these books physically on canvas
which I attached with Bondo, a very durable sealer. I then kept this
canvas for years not knowing how to use the particular image. I
would meditate on it many times until one day in December of 2023
I flipped it over and saw a perfect place for my self portrait. The
pose spoke to me of a man in hiding. I would think on that a bit
and realise that I was hiding, hiding from the world around me. A
world that does not seem to value art and individual expression.
A capitalistic world that cares more for conformity and material
wealth, not to mention its own spiritual wealth that it uses as a root
to this conformity, which may be the worst part of all. This is the
beast, and as I reside in it I have found that it also has a heart.”
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Published by Anima Mundi to coincide with ’In The Belly of the Beast (Searching for a Heart)’ by Miles Cleveland Goodwin
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