Andrew Goodman
Born 1965, Melbourne; lives and works in Central Victoria
Untitled (afternoon tea 2188), 2018.
c type print
Photography by Warwick Baker
Costumes by Susan Dasya
Models: Norie Nuemark and Mattie Sempert
300cm x 200cm
The Gift of Grace and Alec Craig of Bendigo, Victoria 2018.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Visual description:
This photographic work depicts a staged scene with two seated figures in elaborate clothing, which emulates historic women’s dresses in modern metallic fabric, sitting within an entirely white space. On the left, one seated figure wears a voluminous dress in dark metallic gold with a soft helmet connected to a tube, reminiscent of a hazmat suit. On the right, another figure wears a similar dress in pink, and sits upright on a chair with their pink hazmat helmet placed beside them on a low table. On the white wall behind them hangs a single, circular photographic work suggestive of an astronomical image.
Artist’s insights, by Lauren Starr:
Andrew Goodman’s Untitled (afternoon tea 2188) imagines a future where small domestic rituals continue, even as the world feels uncertain. Two women sit together in elaborate, metallic gowns that echo Victorian dress but also resemble survival gear. The scene feels both intimate and strange — a quiet moment held inside something much bigger.
What draws me in is the way the work uses staging, costume and gesture to tell a story. The figures feel less like characters and more like archetypes: women holding space, carrying memory, keeping familiar rhythms alive. In my own practice, I’m interested in similar ideas — how women inhabit landscape, how ritual becomes symbolic, and how imagined histories can help us reflect on the present. Goodman’s careful construction reminds me that emotion in photography is often built slowly, through deliberate choices. Here, tenderness and endurance sit side by side, asking who carries culture forward when everything else shifts.