Juliette Goddard: A Deeply Rooted Passion for Painting Shaped by My Childhood

September 12, 2011
DUNIA Mag
Posted in Black Stories Journeys

I was born in a caravan in Kent, situated in the South East of England from humble beginnings. My parents both started out as student nurses trained at Hackney Hospital in London where they married and my eldest sister Trisha was born.

My mother’s cultural heritage was Dominican and my father’s is British, I was the first child born to both my parents in the 1950’s. At that time there were few mixed race marriages, so my parents took off to live in East Africa during the early years of their marriage where life included studying under a tree after the midday sun had gone down and swimming, plus several Safari holidays.

It was the wonderful early inspiration from African elephants, zebras, lions and tigers that would feed my love for family and other animals. We spent years travelling across the arid landscapes of Africa and sailing up the Nile, many a time stuck in a dry river-bed; my father would pick up local Africans and take them to their villages. We enjoyed the freedom of those formative years that my sisters and I had to dream and play in the bush and watch the house-boys chase chickens around the house and kill them for lunch, while my parents worked hard at the local hospital.

From a very early age at school, I developed a passion for drawing and art and wanted to attend Art school. I was lucky to gain admission into Middlesex University to study for a BA in Fine Art. There I worked very hard to get a good degree and was selected by Professor Alistair Grant at the Royal College of Art to continue my studies and gain a Master of Arts in Fine Art Printmaking. At that time there very few black students at the institution — with about five hundred applicants for roughly eight spots— and no Black tutors whatsoever.

Professor Alistair Grant worked hard to find me financial support from the Henry Moore Foundation without which I could never had been able to complete my studies. I was lucky enough to meet the late Henry Moore at his studio in Much Hadham while he was still alive. I was extremely interested in the French tradition and the influence of Artists like Picasso and Chagall, especially the graphic works. Professor Grant arranged for an exchange program for me in Paris to work at the Ecole Des Arts Decorative in Paris for a term, where I worked with a Picasso printmaking technician, listening to the great stories of when he printed works for both Picasso and Chagall.

The current paintings from my series The Nightingales are deeply rooted in my childhood growing up in Tanzania, inspired by a return trip I made to East Africa, and influenced by the piano symphonies of the work of Maia Hagg–Wackernagel who created music from recording the sounds of male birds’ songs at night and her tribal abilities to recreate the feel of the flight of the birds migrating from Africa to Europe in the Fall. These rhythms and the Massi tribes are remembered in my paintings — reflections of a wonderful continent.

My paintings can be seen in the exhibition at the Barge house, which is much like a New York Warehouse, situated alongside the banks of the River Thames in London; and will be part of a large exhibition including the works of African and African Caribbean Artists.

CHILDHOOD PHOTOS