Barbara A. Friedman
Barbara A. Friedman · Source: New York Artists Circle · Rights retained by the original rights holders
- Medium
- Gouache, Oil Paint
- Practice
- Painting
Barbara’s story begins with her earliest visual memory, a rainbow prism reflected on a hallway wall. That same interest in light and color continues to hold Barbara’s fascination and influences her work today. Full biography
Biography
Barbara’s story begins with her earliest visual memory, a rainbow prism reflected on a hallway wall. That same interest in light and color continues to hold Barbara’s fascination and influences her work today.
For many years Barbara, who holds a BFA from Parsons School of Design, worked as an art director, graphic designer, and illustrator; always creating personal work on the side. Around 2001 she just had to let it out and went back to graduate school for her MFA at William Paterson University of New Jersey. While there, she integrated digital and traditional painting, experimenting with what was then considered “new technology.”
Consistently interested in memory, Barbara uses the act of “re-actualization of a moment”, a way to hold onto a memory before it slips away. These “memory moments” are an opportunity to revisit spaces and places now gone, a viscerally connective way to hold onto a memory. Viewing places and spaces from a car during the pandemic created an extended view of these places as they disappear, altering our landscape. The desire to hold onto these memories is even stronger.
Artist statement
My paintings demonstrate the manner of "constructing" that holds both a mental fascination and a process fascination in the method of their creation.
Paintings are derived from memory and place, but are reflective of surroundings without necessarily reflecting the exactitude of the place. The paintings are transportive in their ability to create a journey as they explore memory, color, composition and a search for the sublime.
