Riley Goodman

About

Riley Goodman (b. 1996), raised in the Patapsco River Valley of Maryland, inquires folklore, American history, and humankind's relation to the environments they inhabit in an effort to understand what endures, and how this manifests through the passage of time. Informed by the compositional styles of cinema and painting, Goodman weaves a vast visual narrative inspired by everything from historical accounts and folk-based storytelling to dreams and familial legends. Goodman's work becomes an ever-occurring presentation of history via the use of artifact and ephemera. By establishing this crafted world, Goodman invites the viewer to question tenets of authenticity, leaving the idea of 'historical truth' in an undisclosed middle ground. Goodman is a BFA graduate of VCUarts and his first monograph, From Yonder Wooded Hill was published in 2022 by Fall Line Press. His work has appeared in The Washington Post and Time, among other outlets, and most notably resides in the permanent collections of the MoMA Artist Book Collection and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.