Rosalind Goss

My last show, “Things Said,” was inspired by spoken words. For my new work, I wanted words again to be the catalyst. Last year, I came across a jar full of fortunes that I had collected between the years of 1986 and 1994. This period represented a new beginning for me, the promise of a new relationship in a new home. It struck me that the words of these fortunes could be my next source of inspiration. It seemed an interesting idea to respond in the present to a fortune I had collected in the past, that was meant to predict the future.

My process for this art project was to randomly pick fortunes out of the jar until it was empty. There was a large range of messages: from the descriptive to the prophetic, from the clichéd to the wise, from the vague to the cryptic, from the mundane to the profound. My responses ranged from the irreverent to the respectful. I wanted to convey my reactions to the fortunes from my perspective of the present, looking back on how things actually turned out.

I chose materials and imagery in line with my responses to the fortunes. I often used mylar to partially expose images, to show transition/transformation, and to create a sense of memory/dream. I also used old clippings from picture files of the 1950s that belonged to my father, an illustrator and portrait painter. Many of the images from the 50s resonated with the often clichéd advice and projections of future happiness found in the fortunes. I chose the images in the same way that I draw, making unconscious and not always logical connections between the images and words. I chose to work small, as I wanted the viewing experience to be intimate and on a scale with the fortunes themselves.

Drawing is always at the base of my work. I love the immediacy and directness of its gestures. It is well-suited to my minimalist approach of expressing both the profound and the mundane. It traces the movement of thought and emotion in both coherent and disjointed ways.