Brett Goodroad (b. 1979, Kearney, NE) works outside, en plein air, and his paintings capture a sense of openness and isolation in equal measure, evoking the atmosphere (the air, the sky, natural light) as it relates to paint and as paint relates to it. Hilton Als, writing for The New Yorker in 2021 on Goodroad’s particular blend of figuration and abstraction, observes how the artist's paintings seem to "want to devour the very subjects that inspired them." This oscillation between hunger and reluctance characterizes the delicate nature of Goodroad’s image-making—a symbiotic relationship between surface, brush, paint, and idea, wherein metamorphosis becomes the subject itself. Rather than seeking to reconcile the tension between form and content through illusion or ineluctable objecthood, Goodroad's approach embraces emergence as its focal point—an invitation to witness and be.

Recent solo exhibitions include Greene Naftali, New York (2024, 2022; in collaboration with Cushion Works, curated by Hilton Als); Cushion Works, San Francisco (2024, 2021, 2017); ADZ Gallery, Lisbon (2022); Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco (2019, 2015); and Phoenix Art Space, Brighton, U.K. (2018). Significant group shows include Greene Naftali, New York (2024); Karma, New York (2021); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley (2019, 2018); and The Drawing Center, New York (2014), among others. His work is in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.