SAM FRIEDMANBlowing up like a supernovaINTERVIEW 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

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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

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

“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.”

Happy Place (4)Acrylic on canvas16" x 20"2013

large-scale paintings: the murals painted in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s by writers like Lee, Seen and others. This handball-wall 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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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.

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.

aboveHappy Place (6)

Acrylic on canvas16" x 20"

2013

opposite topUntitled (16)

Acrylic on canvas48" x 48"

2014

opposite bottomUntitled (14)

Acrylic on canvas48” x 48”

2014

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.

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

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.

leftHappy Place (5)

Acrylic on canvas16" x 20"

2013

rightUntiled (5)

Acrylic on canvas24" 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

JUXTAPOZ.COM / SAM - FRIEDMAN