Annette Goodfriend was born and raised in Northern California. She completed her undergraduate degree at U.C. Berkeley, where she studied Genetics and Art, and received her M.F.A. at the California College of the Arts. Her work stems from a fascination with the perversity of nature and the role of humans, casting a critical, scientific, and occasionally humorous eye on the mutagenesis of form, from the cellular level to the limb.

Goodfriend is a winner of the International Art Competition Premio O.R.A. Italia, the Malamegi Lab 15 International Art Prize, and is one of 18 artists from 15 countries whose work was chosen for the YICCA International Art Prize. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Discovered Award, a grant and exhibition funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and Sonoma County, and was honored with residencies at the Morris Graves Foundation and the Headlands Center for the Arts.
Her sculpture has been exhibited in solo and group shows locally, nationally, and internationally, including the Museum of Sonoma County, Kellogg University Art Gallery, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, HDLU Pavilion in Zagreb, Croatia, and 3)5 Arte Contemporanea, a contemporary art gallery in Viterbo, Italy, among many others. Her work has been featured in exhibition catalogues and reviews, and was included in Artists of the Bay Area, a book published in 2022.

Goodfriend lives and works in Sonoma, California with her husband, son, and menagerie.