RESUME (pdf)

Zoë Goehring recently graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelor of Humanities and Art with concentrations in Fine Art and Creative Writing. She currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA. Upcoming projects include a book of poetry & illustrations with Six Gallery Press.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Art-making is mess-making. It is digging in the dirt, it is excavation, it is uncovering something from the subconscious.  Art-making and writing are processes of discovery for me, of pulling something surprising out of the materials at hand, whether they are words, physical materials, digital images, or sound. It is a process of disintegrating the self and reassembling something true. The final work is the artifact of this process of revelation. I aim to surprise myself and to give viewers or readers a similar satisfaction through their interactions with my work. While in my most recent work I attempt to address this process more consciously, it has always had a presence in what I create, whether accidentally or by design.

Threads that have consistently run through both my writing and my artwork include a desire to create a sense of character and narrative, a love of simplicity (or the illusion of simplicity), an appreciation of silence and of open spaces, and a desire to connect with people on a basic human level (whether through nourishment, humor, confrontation, etc.).

I draw inspiration from the work of Ann Hamilton, Damien Hirst, Gwenyth Scally’s Museum of Dying Giants, the writings of Barbara Kingsolver and Mary Oliver, the art and writing of Lynda Barry, the American Southwest and Northeast, field guides, biology textbooks, knitting and sewing patterns, and cookbooks.