Gallery Audio Tour
Grayslake Campus: A-Wing
Winifred Godfrey
Hollyhock | 1991.13Gr
Audio Tour
In this audio clip the narrator describes Godfrey's piece.
Length: 0:1:58 (one minute and fifty-eight seconds)
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About the Piece
Hollyhock, 1991Lithograph; 38/80
1991.13 Gr
Gift of Enid Kolb
Godfrey has been featured in two CLC Gallery Exhibitions:
Paintings and Works on Paper, 1992
and Mayan Procession, 2000
Narration Text
From a child’s simplistic crayon drawing of a tulip on a Mother’s Day card, to the detailed bouquet of a Dutch Master vanitas painting, to Georgia O’Keeffe’s sensual folds of a calla-lily, flowers have been a long-standing subject of still life painting. What is it about flowers that captures an artist’s fancy? And then, how does the artist find the “language” to say something unique? Chicago-area artist Winifred Godfrey has spent a lifetime studying and painting flowers.What sets her apart in this long tradition of floral still life? In a word: scale. Her flowers are larger than life; monumental. We change size because of the flower’s scale. We become the size of a bee darting from one luscious blossom to the next looking for nectar. A quote from her website reveals the intent of her artistic expression, “The feeling of being enveloped by the flowers, of being so lost in the flower that you see light and form rather than the flower itself is what I’m trying to express (Godfrey).”
So, it is more than just about the flower. Drawn on a dark background, the hollyhock blossoms stand on their own, without the context of habitat. The two trumpet-like blossoms in the foreground push forward in space while others are rotated and tucked back. Deep in the shadows are other forms that are beyond the sharp focus of the visual field. Because of the scale and isolation of subject matter, we are able to appreciate just what the artist hopes for: form and subtle color rotating in space.
Written by Jane Ellefson, Gallery Preparator, Robert T. Wright Gallery, College of Lake County.
Works cited:
Godfrey, Winifred. Winifred Godfrey. 2002. 19 June 2008. http://www.godfreyart.com/bio.php.
