July 30, 2013

Photo Feature: Tournesol Award 2012-13 Brett Goodroad, “What Imaginist Knew” at The Luggage Store Gallery

by MONIQUE DELAUNAY, EDITOR

Now on view at The Luggage Store Gallery, Headlands Center for the Arts’ Tournesol Award 2012-2013 recipient Brett Goodroad’s final project solo exhibition, “What Imaginist Knew” is the culmination of a year-long studio residency at the center. This award is just one of several programs at Headlands that fosters local artistic talent at critical junctures of their career, while concurrently supporting the San Francisco Bay Area’s thriving contemporary art community. The Tournesol Award recognizes one local painter each year of exceptional merit and commitment to their craft, and provides them with financial and professional support to assist in their artistic development within the first five years after receiving a post-graduate, Masters of Fine Arts degree. Past recipients include Paul Wackers, Claire Rojas, Chris Ballantyne, and Leslie Shows.

Brett Goodroad’s practice begins by recollecting paintings that have inspired him: “I read and absorb as much of their place as I can, wishing to imbed myself. This fits a sort of internalization I have been interested in throughout my entire practice… Things seem to come more naturally that way, marks and choices become the sensibility. Holding the sensibility as a tool becomes the process. The paintings and drawings become evidence of the investigation and the discoveries.” At his residency at Headlands Center for the Arts, Goodroad worked on a parody/study of the Rococo era. Goodroad also participated in “Ten Revolutions Around the Sun, A Decade of the Tournesol Painter Award” at Headlands Center for the Arts in 2012.