BIO 

The  theme of the feminine experience weaves through the work, mixed with an edge of music and the irreverence of dealing with the crap media throws in your face about the ideology of perfection or ultimate sexuality.  Music and Fashion combine and perceptions of beauty, the way fashion indoctinates girls to an unnatailble visual goal, the concept of the tabloids making it almost now an anomaly to have 'your own tits' in our time... And yet, still with a deep inherent love for fashion, and music, it is the pulse that drives her.

 

Evidence of Emma's sartorial background runs intrisically through the veins of her work...as it is at the core of her identitiy.  Her grandmother made wedding dresses for the entire East End of London and ultimately had a fashion house eponymously called 'Mary Wilson' which she sold.  Her grandpa Joe was a tailor with the finest hipster moustache you have ever seen.  Her mother was a dancer, then later a fashion model and illustrator for Murray Arbeid.  Emma's father - Irving Goodman just won a lifetime fashion achievement award last year,,,  he spent half of every year travelling to the far east, fuelling Emma's desire to be in the same field.  "...to travel to Hong Kong was one of my earliest ambitions.  And one I still have yet to do...' ;(

 

Graduating from Central Saint Martins with BA Hons in Fashion Commnications and Promotions she studied Fashion Journalism, Fashion Photography, Illustration, and Styling, and was the college wide winner of the Rimmel Creative Advertising Award running her ads for Rimmel through the fashion glossies. Emma produced a magazine for her final, and instantly got a job as a street fashion writer and photogrpaher for the Fashion Section of The Independent Newspaper.  Throughout her time in college she painted banners and murals, did photography and styling, and created flyers for clubs and music establishments names including Acid Jazz, Blue Note (club on Hoxton Square) , Magic Bus, Roataion at Subterranea, Quaff Records in Berwick Street, Metamorphosis (styling and photographing Melanie Blatt for All Saints) styling for Two Unlimited (No Limits Video) and Club Art in Southhampton.  A love for dancing also fuelled a late night roaming to clubs, with Emma ultimately living a stolen childhood crushed dream of being a dancer coming out by dancing in Music Videos and on stage at Notting Hill Carnival for The Family McKoy whom she also photographed them and styling them for shows.  

 

PRESS

She was interveiwed on Talk Radio Europe last summer and written about in the Daily Mail. She has shown at The Catto Gallery Flower Show in Hampstead and had a solo at the Seyhoun Gallery on Melrose in LA. She has had commissions worldwide, and her work is now being sought after by many companies to use her artwork on everything from yoga mats to phone covers.

 

Goodman O’Rourke is represented by the Modern Artists Gallery and the Ralls Collection in Washington DC. She lives in Washington, DC with  two children and two dogs, and goes back to the UK regularly.

 

 

http://www.womentalking.co.uk/features/feature-802.htm

 

http://www.womentalking.co.uk/lifestyle/articles/article-966.htm