I’m a Contemporary Impressionist Painter and Sculptor. I sculpt in clay which is then Cast using the Lost Wax process in Bronze or Aluminium and paint with oils using knives, cloths and my hands on board or panel. I also draw with Charcoal after having created various surfaces to make full use of the remarkable flexibility of the medium.
I have a particular interest in Medieval Women hence my series of sculptures celebrating the highly educated and extremely powerful Eleanor of Aquitaine and my sculpture celebrating Margery Kempe, Christian Mystic, intrepid Pilgrim and Author of the first Autobiography in the English Language. I also wanted to explore my feelings about being a woman in the 21st Century the resulting piece being my sculpture ‘Elemental Woman’.
I’m currently researching the life of another Medieval woman, Lady Murasaki Shikibu the Japanese writer of the Tale of Genji (generally acknowledged as being the first novel in the world) with a view to making a sculpture to celebrate her.
I’m self-taught and after many years of living in Scotland, I work from my Studio near King's Lynn (where Margery Kempe was born in 1373) in Norfolk and am married to astrophysics researcher and photographer Michael Waller-Bridge FRAS.
NOTE: If you are interested in purchasing a piece (or indeed pieces!) of my work please email me via the Contact Form. Thank you.
To view information of prices, dimensions etc. of the various works of art please note that for technical reasons unfortunately that information is not available on a mobile ‘phone.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT by ROSEMARY GOODENOUGH
‘Every Mark is a Decision’
As an Artist I am viscerally aware of the straight-line connection between me and the Artists who made their Marks with such verve on the walls of the Chauvet Caves approximately 35,000 years ago. We don't know their names, sex or motivations but the drive and passion to make Marks is a primitive and inescapable human need and this straight-line connection between Artists across millennia will never be broken. Being part of a link in this past and future chain is fundamental to my life as an Artist.
My father was passionately interested in sculpture and paintings and I will always be grateful to him for teaching me how to look at art in great detail and it has informed how I work as there is a great deal more to artistic creation than the making of marks. Looking is incredibly important. People always ask how long it takes to make a piece and the first answer is ‘a lifetime’ and the next answer varies from work to work. As an example of this process of looking, there was a painting I was pleased with but knew something was wrong. I put it on a spare easel in my studio and kept glancing at it and 8 months later I realised that I didn’t need to add to it: it needed to have something removed. I grabbed a palette knife, removed the ‘offending’ marks and the painting was finished! Proof to me at least that painting involves a lot of looking, not always doing.
I’m particularly interested in the Japanese concept of ‘Ma’ which I understand is to do with absence of activity so for example in music it is the silence between the sounds, in painting it’s the unfilled space that leaves the viewer able to use their own imagination. To me the negative space is as important as the positive space and in my paintings and drawings every mark is a decision and every decision to not make a mark is absolutely critical to the final piece.
SPEECH AT THE ‘RECEPTION OF WELCOME’ OF ‘A WOMAN IN MOTION’ INTO THE
LAMBETH PALACE ART COLLECTION JUNE 2025
Rosemary Goodenough - Sculptrix
Margery Kempe is one of the most fascinating characters I've ever come across. When The Reverend Canon Dr. Mark Dimond Vicar of King's Lynn Minster commissioned me to make a sculpture for permanent installation in the Minster celebrating the 650th anniversary of her birth in King's (then Bishop's) Lynn I was thrilled as I have a bit of a thing about Medieval Women and he had seen my series of sculptures celebrating Eleanor of Aquitaine.
I started my research by of course reading 'The Book of Margery Kempe' the first autobiography in the English language and at the beginning found her intensely irritating, actually completely maddening and thought she was merely attention seeking. Nowadays of course she would be treated for post-natal depression but in the early 15th Century she was just seen as bonkers and possibly heretical which put her in harms way many times. By the time I had finished reading her book, the irritation remained but to a much lesser degree and I found myself absolutely convinced by her sincerity and the profoundness of her faith. Professor Anthony Bale's book 'A Mixed Life' was hugely informative and beautifully written so please take a bow Anthony ......... as was ‘Femina’ by Professor Janina Ramirez who very much wanted to join us this evening but sadly is on a plane to China right now so unable to be here. Having seen and loved my sculpture of Margery Kempe she bought one complete set of all 5 of my series of sculptures celebrating Eleanor of Aquitaine one her great heroines which was fantastic. 'Femina' was the word used by Monks during the Reformation and was stamped on books by or about women - meaning to be destroyed, Janina describes how 'The Book of Margery Kempe' somehow escaped destruction and was lost until the 1930's when it was discovered in a cupboard during a game of ping pong when a ball flew off the table and shot through a crack in the cupboard door in a country house. The owner was quite happy to chuck all the old papers onto a bonfire but thankfully one of his guests was a curator at the V & A and recognised its significance!
There is only one other sculpture celebrating Margery Kempe which is on the Camino in Spain and depicts her as a writer so I thought I would focus on her life as an incredibly doughty and intrepid Pilgrim, extraordinarily challenging for a woman in the 15th century and of course being Margery she drove everyone about her up the wall, she really was entirely lacking in any sense that she could make her own life easier. I have depicted her wearing white as that is what she was convinced Jesus had commanded her to do and for which she was prosecuted and persecuted and indeed here in Lambeth Palace a woman wanted her to be burned at the stake in Smithfield, a terrifying prospect which is why she kept her hands tucked inside her clothes as they shook so much but she felt the need to speak robustly in her own defence without appearing to be afraid. She walked in the gardens here at Lambeth Palace with Archbishop Arundel and clearly bought him round to thankfully believing in her sincerity. I had her cast in Aluminium as a nod to her love of fine clothes and also because to my mind it has a more spiritual sensibility than bronze which to me is more about power and of course her robes have been laquered bright white. Her 'top-knot' is my way of denoting her indomitable spirit, both secular and religious as described in Anthony's book about her wish to live 'A Mixed Life'.
A couple of final things. You may be interested to hear that at the end of the pouring of the aluminium at the Foundry, there was a for me and my husband Michael Waller-Bridge a very moving moment as the two foundrymen whose work I am in awe of, removed their helmets and gauntlets, looked straight at each other and shook hands - a great tradition marking the end of the most dangerous part of the lost wax process that has been unchanged for about 6,500 years. This courtesy ritual always marks the end of the day of Pouring and the mutual respect between them felt very emotional as it is a very dangerous environment.
I cannot thank Danny Johnson enough, it has been a complete joy working with him and his passion for and profound knowledge about Lambeth Palace is utterly inspiring and I could not be more thrilled with his decision to place Margery Kempe in such a strategically relevant position - the Lollards Tower to her left, the Archbishop's Chapel ahead of her and within that, the balcony leading to the room to where Archbishop Cranmer wrote the Book of Common Prayer, to my mind some of the most beautiful writing in the English language. It is a great honour for me as Danny kindly told me that I am the first female artist to have a sculpture inside Lambeth Palace and it is now part of the Permanent Art Collection here.
Thank you as ever to my husband Michael Waller-Bridge without whose morale boosting presence and love I would be bereft.
