sam friedman - Joshua Liner Gallery

SAM
FRIEDMAN
Blowing up like a supernova
INTERVIEW BY KRISTIN FARR AND NINA GIBBES
PORTRAIT BY FARZAD OWRANG
WORKING WITHIN A SYSTEM OF HIS OWN DESIGN,
Sam Friedman has been on a steady streak of creating
images that have an astronomical impact on the eye.
Colors pop and landscapes dance as his paint moves
around the canvas spontaneously. He works intuitively,
but there is a layer of control, an effortlessness that can
only result from a balance of flow and restraint. You will
see what you want to see in these paintings because
their dialect is ambiguous, but be aware that nothing is
exactly as it seems. Nina Gibbes launched our interview
by asking Friedman about his new exhibition at Joshua
Liner gallery, and then I dug into more of the nitty gritty.
—Kristin Farr
“There is an appeal in going to the edge
of the world, and just looking out at the
distance, and trying to relax and play.”
Nina Gibbes: What’s the story behind the Happy Place
series? How did it begin? Describe the symbolism you are
working with.
Sam Friedman: I meant for the Happy Place series to be
able to function as individual pieces, but to initially be
presented as one large grid. I feel as though each painting
can stand alone as a strong work in itself, yet I build each
painting to be able to work off of the others. To do this, I
worked with a very consistent color scheme, a consistent
scale, both of line weight and of form, and a predetermined
list of representational elements. Once decided, I used
these constraints to dictate the building blocks I was
working with in order to make each picture.
Ultimately, the paintings are almost entirely about painting
itself. The subject matter exists, but it exists more in the
way subjects exist in a Bob Dylan song. By this I mean that
while they are representational, the pictures are not about
what they represent. The representational elements are
there as a means to make a painting. This is not to say that
the subject matter is arbitrary or irrelevant, just that it stands
entirely secondarily to the paintings, which are about color,
form, line, paint, texture and the history of painting itself.
The choice to use subject matter that is representational
in my paintings has more to do with making them initially
approachable to any viewer. The elements shown are
all from my own life, yet I did my best to strip away their
distinctly biographical qualities and reduce them to more
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universal ideas. They may not portray reality that is 100%
universal, but they represent reality that hopefully engages
a broader audience about their own lives, rather than just
telling my own personal biography. The woman shown is
meant to be my wife, Laura, yet her faceless head allows
her, for the viewer, to be the idea of a woman in general.
She is love and companionship, but she is not just mine.
The lobsters are similar to the beaches. Lobsters are a
symbol of living well and not having financial worries. It
is a decadent food, and my personal favorite thing to eat.
Additionally, the lobsters I paint are not what you would find
in Florida or Haiti. They are the lobsters of the Northeast,
the lobsters of New England, the lobsters of happy times in
my childhood on vacation with my family. In this way, they
become regional symbols of my own personal aspirations to
be able to make a living and support my own future family.
The colored walls are an element that I introduced about
two years ago. Their function was a way to combine
my entirely abstract painting with my representational
painting. By placing a freestanding mural wall in a natural
environment, I was able to create an image that used
both of the directions that my paintings were going in
simultaneously. These freestanding walls are always meant
to depict a 16-foot-tall by 20-foot-long wall. Those specific
dimensions were chosen because they are the same
dimensions as a standard New York City handball court wall,
which is an homage to some of my earliest introductions to
Happy Place (4)
Acrylic on canvas
16" x 20"
2013
large-scale paintings: the murals painted in the 1970s, ‘80s
and ‘90s by writers like Lee, Seen and others. This handballwall scale also dictated the dimensions of the paintings
themselves, but instead of 16 by 20 feet, each painting is 16
by 20 inches.
The bongs are relatively self-explanatory in that they are
about my experiences with marijuana that started in my
early teens. There is also a love letter quality in there, in
that my first date, and many dates after that with my wife,
consisted of bong hits, drawing and sex.
How do you make your paintings? Are they projected,
masked off or entirely freehand?
All of my paintings are done entirely freehand. There is
no masking or projection, and I rarely use rulers, straight
edges, or pencils. Instead, I prefer to go straight to paint.
The plans for each of these paintings started by doing small
compositional sketches on 3 x 5" postcards cut down to
match the scale of the paintings. Each drawing consists of
little more than a rectangle, a circle and a few lines.
Having been introduced to commercial art and illustration,
do you think those skills have had a major influence on
your work as an artist? In what ways has this informed
your fine art career?
I'm not really sure. I chose to study commercial art in
college out of a fear of not being able to support myself
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It’s impressive that you make landscape painting feel new
again. What do you like about abstracting nature, and
do environmental or other concerns inspire the way you
represent them?
I still find a comfort at the beach. My father described the
beach as a place where people go with a common goal, to
get to the edge of the world, to get away from things that
people have created. I'm sure I'm paraphrasing, and maybe
even getting it wrong, but I think there's something to that.
There is an appeal in going to the edge of the world, and
just looking out at the distance, and trying to relax and play.
I imagine that I will try to make time to do that forever, so if
I keep getting pleasure out of being there, I imagine it will
keep giving me plans for paintings.
Sometimes the abstract pieces look like details of patterns
found in nature. Is that something you consider?
My paintings exist as representational and abstracted
works, and frequently, they are somewhere in between.
What kind of art do you like to look at, and what kind of art
are you least attracted to?
I tend to look at people that draw and paint. The rest of what
happens under the umbrella of the term “art” might intrigue
me at times, but I’d rather watch a sport that I play. I make
images, so that’s what I look at.
Are you obsessive about painting?
I like to be painting for the bulk of the time that I am
working, and I like to be working a lot of the time that I am
living, so yeah, I think I paint a lot. For me, the painting is the
whole process, not the final solution. By this I mean that I
don’t have a fully realized idea thought up, and then execute
the painting after the fact. The bulk of my time isn’t spent on
conceptualizing an intellectual idea, it’s spent moving paint
around. The next idea is almost always realized by making,
not thinking. For this reason, I think I find explaining my
paintings difficult. They aren’t images built in the language
of words, then converted to paint, then explained later in
words. They are built in the language of paint and painting
from the get-go, and I am not quite bilingual enough yet to
translate.
in the future. The idea of making a living off of paintings
seemed far off, and at the time, I felt like commercial art
could be a happy medium, a compromise where I would
still get to make pictures for a living, and not have to
work a completely menial job. As it turned out, I hated
doing commercial work. I hated art directors, and I hated
feeling like I had to do what they said. I do, however, love
looking at a lot of commercial work throughout time. The
aesthetics and speed that have characterized commercial
art throughout history have dramatically influenced the way
I think about picture making.
If someone were to ask you about this new exhibition, how
would you sum it up in one sentence?
This body of work is about the complex process of trying to
create a great painting and the simple universal themes of
normal life.
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Kristin Farr: Do your landscapes represent specific places?
The beaches are based off of the ones in the northeastern
section of the United States. I have never allowed myself
to paint plants or natural scenes that do not exist in this
geographic region, as I have never personally lived outside
of New York State in my life. You won't find palm trees or
tropical elements, as they do not relate to me. With that said,
I still believe that they are approachable in the universal
appeal that the ocean and sunsets have for people all
over the globe. My initial start with beach paintings came
on August 3, 2008, while spending my wife's birthday at
Rockaway Beach with her and some friends. While we were
there, the idea of these Sunset Beach paintings came to me,
and within the next three weeks, I produced the first four of
the series that is still ongoing. Since that time, I have also
made multiple references to a beach on Block Island, Rhode
Island that I have been visiting for years.
above
Happy Place (6)
Acrylic on canvas
16" x 20"
2013
opposite top
Untitled (16)
Acrylic on canvas
48" x 48"
2014
opposite bottom
Untitled (14)
Acrylic on canvas
48” x 48”
2014
That makes sense. Do you make things besides paintings?
I love drawing and making collages. They are great activities
to keep my hands busy while watching a movie with my
wife, traveling, or any other time when there is a potential to
feel restless.
Your process seems fairly spontaneous.
The painting that I made directly before the one I am
working on usually leads to the following piece. It has
been a long time since I can remember not having another
painting that was ready to start by the time I was nearing the
end of the piece directly in front of me. Each painting leads
to the next.
Who are some other artists whose work you feel is in
dialogue with your own?
Roy Lichtenstein, Philip Guston, Willem DeKooning, Tom
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Wesselman, John Wesley, Frank Stella, Pablo Picasso,
Henri Matisse, William Copley, H.C. Westermann, Kee
Van Dongen, Ralph Bakshi, Kaws, Todd James, Ed Roth,
Lee, Japanese edo period printmakers, Sol Lewitt, Jack
Goldstein, Ed Pashke, Thomas Hart Benton, Tom of Finland,
Namio Harukawa, Saul Steinberg, Peter Saul, Nick Atkins,
Dan Santoro, Ned Vena, Alex Katz, Henri Rousseau,
Fernand Leger, Jean Dewasne, Eddie Martinez, Josh
Sperling, Dondi, Noc167, Ghost, Chain 3, Rate, Louis Wain,
Stuart Davis, Ray Johnson, Max Ernst, George Grosz, Otto
Dixx, Sven Lukin, Andy Warhol, Kenneth Noland, Ralph
Fasanella, Blade, R. Crumb, Tomoo Gokita, David Hockney,
Henry Darger, Elie Nadelman, Chris Johanson, Howard
Finster, Tadanori Yokoo, Paul Gauguin, Misaki Kawai,
Al Held… the list could go on and on.
That was a nice, hefty list. What type of reaction do you
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hope your work evokes?
That varies a lot from piece to piece, but the most common
would probably be to bring the viewer in, and take the
viewer away.
I find a sense of humor in your work but I don’t know why.
Is it there or am I imagining it?
Yeah, I’d like to think so. Thanks.
What are some questions or issues you try to work out
through your art?
How to make the best painting that has ever been made,
or how to make a painting that can hold its own when given
the chance to be in the mix with history. The same questions
that I imagine all painters are asking the picture in front
of them.
left
Happy Place (5)
Acrylic on canvas
16" x 20"
2013
right
Untiled (5)
Acrylic on canvas
24" x 36"
2014
Have you always painted figuratively?
I think I started painting nudes in 2012. I was looking for new
compositional forms to break up the landscape images, and
the nude allowed that. I started painting nudes based on my
wife. Sometimes I would draw her from life, but then I would
redraw those drawings again and again until they turned
into the images I was looking for.
What’s the biggest piece you’ve ever painted?
The largest painting I’ve done was 19 feet long, and the
longest mural I’ve done was about 150 feet long. I feel most
comfortable working at a larger scale.
What makes you consider a painting successful, and what
constitutes a successful art career, in your opinion?
I think a successful art career has two phases, life and
death. To be successful in life, you are making the paintings
you want to make, and they are selling. This is allowing you
a happy place to go to sleep and eat some good meals with
your family, while also providing the means to keep making
more paintings. To be successful in death, you’ve made the
paintings you wanted to make, whether or not you have
gotten to enjoy it. If you do it right, and get a little bit lucky,
I guess you get to do both. That’s what I am trying for.
Sam Friedman’s exhibition, Happy Place, is on view at Joshua Liner
Gallery January 15 – February 14, 2015.
Fore more information about Sam Freidman, visit
joshulinergallery.com
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