Barbara Goldmann Exhibition Page

I used the internet to help me write this in English.

 

I was born in Paris and I left school at 15. I worked very young. I was first an apprentice hairdresser in a trendy salon, then I worked for some time in studios for magazines. And I got tired of it.

 

Around 1990, I ran one of my parents’ crêperies on rue Saint-André-des-Arts in Paris. For a long time, this restaurant didn’t work. Then they gave me carte blanche and I completely transformed it with some graffiti friends. The walls and the seats were covered with graffiti and poems. I was a fan of rap, the music was loud. The restaurant started to work, then it was a big success. It became a meeting place for many young people from the neighborhood and the suburbs. The clientele was young, mixed, and some were real eccentrics. There were often undercover cops, but I had a good eye, I recognized them quickly. And no one caused problems, it was very fresh and creative.

Just comme ça, 2025

Since childhood, I always drew, but I thought it was impossible to become a painter without art school.

 

Then I was in Senegal for six months. I found some beads there and started making necklaces. Back in Paris, I sold them.

 

Later, with a friend and her partner, we had the idea to buy cheap costume jewelry. We changed the clasps, added some beads, transformed them to give them some style. We had suitcases filled with our jewelry and we would set up in front of Galeries Lafayette. Then we sold them on the street. Everyone had their own spot, it was a rule in the street. We did this during the Mitterrand governments. Then the Chirac government came and it was no longer possible.

 

I wanted to go to the United States. I started in San Francisco, where I went to join my friend Myriam. I stayed there two months. We couldn’t find work, so I wandered around and I started drawing every day. Then I went to New York and my friend Myriam joined me.

 

In New York, I worked in restaurants, first in a French restaurant on Madison Avenue, then in the East Village.

 

That’s where I met Rick Librizzi, an art dealer with a poet’s soul. He taught me a lot about art, we talked about painting and philosophy. Rick was about thirty years older than me, but he became my best friend. We spent a lot of time together: walking in the city, laughing, talking about art, visiting galleries. We often drew in his room at the Chelsea Hotel. I liked his friends, painters, poets, and we also went to draw with live models at the Art Students League.

 

Rick liked my drawings a lot and gave me confidence. It’s in this city that I understood that I wanted to become a painter.

Untitled (Miscarriage), 2005, oil on paper, 50 x 65 cm

I stayed there three years. In spring 2000, I went back to France. I wanted to find again my boyfriend at the time, who had come back a bit earlier. I worked again in my family’s restaurants part-time while continuing to draw.

 

Then I met a new boyfriend and I became a mother. I worked part-time in the restaurants and the rest of the time I painted and raised my child.

 

When my son was seven, I got sick. I had breast cancer and I followed heavy treatments that deeply changed my life.

 

For several years, I lived with fear in my stomach, but also with a big respect for life. I continued to draw and to paint. I never really made steps toward galleries, I didn’t find the time or the energy, and I didn’t want to be put into a style. I just wanted to continue to paint and to draw.

 

When my son was twelve, I separated from his father and I raised him alone. I worked part-time, I painted and I took care of him.

 

I did very few exhibitions, only a few in my studio and one in a big apartment of friends. During these exhibi- tions, I sold my works correctly and especially met people who supported my work with their enthusiasm and sometimes with financial support.

 

At the same time, I started to post my works on Facebook, then on Instagram. I looked a lot at art there and discovered many painters. I also followed a lot the posts of David Rimanelli, which for me were like a very moving cultural window.

 

Since April 2025, I have a studio in Fontenay-sous-Bois, very close to Paris and at a very reasonable price. It’s a really good space. I started oil painting again. I had used oil before, but I didn’t really understand it. Now

 

I finally found my way of working. I put the oil directly on paper so it absorbs the shine, and I don’t use any medium.

 

I didn’t really have time to go to openings. I had a child, a job, and all the time that was left was for painting.

 

For the past years, I dedicate myself entirely to painting.

 

I paint in an instinctive way, by impulse.

 

When I draw or when I paint, I work on the floor. I need to be very close to what I do, to become the painting.

 

I don’t really have an idea in advance. I paint with what comes to me in life — softness, violence, banality or something funny. I don’t want to tell a story, but rather to install a feeling.

 

I don’t necessarily try to make characters, but rather presences.

 

I deeply love color, I think it has an erotic power.

 

I would like to get out of the image and rather embody it.

 

I accept mistakes, I cannot hide them, because they have their truth. I don’t try to understand everything in painting.

 

–Barbara Goldmann, @barbara.goldmann