Inspiration Flow V3 ©2024 Brian Goodman
"Once in a while you get shown the light,
in the strangest of places if you look at it right".
~ Robert Hunter
THE STORY
Artist Statement
Brian Goodman has always been captivated by the visual interplay between light, color, texture and movement.
For over 50 years, Brian’s photography has spanned the globe, capturing stirring landscapes, intriguing characters, and thought-provoking studies using a wide variety of methods and media.
Chasing Light Beams – The Grateful Dead Collection
After attending his first Grateful Dead concert at U.C. Santa Barbara and getting "on the bus" back in 1978, Brian was an overnight convert. (for those of you who were there, there is no doubt you remember that show well.) Brian has always been a fan of not only the music but an admirer of the artwork, iconography, photographs, artists, and photographers that were all part of the Grateful Dead world. In fact, the first commercial piece Brian ever created was a poster of a photograph he captured at that same concert in 1978, which he entitled "A Day in the Sun". (A limited quantity of these original 4-color offset printed posters are still available.)
When Brian began creating images for his “Solace of Space” series, his original inspiration came from landscapes, seascapes, and cityscapes, blurring the lines between photography and conventional art forms, (painting, pastels, charcoal). Recently, his focus has been on experimenting with different types of source material, exploring new directions with exciting results. This new direction, combined with more than 45 years of Grateful Dead adventures, has inspired him to create images that evoke the Grateful Dead experience.
While at a Dead and Company concert at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington state in 2019, Brian captured his first images in this new collection. Excited by the outcome, he continued to experiment with images at concerts over the last five years. The band, the lights, the video screens, the fans, all became subjects in this latest series of work. The pièce de résistance came when Brian and his wife, Shira, experienced the wonder of Dead and Company's residence at Sphere, Las Vegas in June 2024.
As in the "Solace of Space" collection, the "Chasing Light Beams – the Grateful Dead Collection" is designed to draw us into spaces of comfort and solitude. They are visually suggestive of something familiar, and yet are unable to be defined. In fact, they could be anywhere – dreamlike images inviting you into a place of private wonder. You find yourself responding emotionally to the colors, textures, and movement within each artistically crafted image, creating a sense of tranquility, excitement, and familiarity.