Sam Friedman’s First Solo Show in Athens dreams in colors borrowed from an island.
Dio Horia is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by Sam Friedman in Athens, after the artist’s residency and solo show in Mykonos in 2019. The exhibition opens on October 7 and ends on November 15, 2020. The exhibition ‘Island’ is composed entirely of new paintings that focus οn the themes of landscape painting and natural phenomena. Strictly installed by color throughout the project space, these paintings elicit a reaction similar to our reaction to music. Themes and motifs, colours and feelings appear again and again, slightly different yet charged with the same energy, bound together in a never-ending circle of repetition, mutation, change and repetition again. With this new body of work Friedman further explores and deepens an artistic practice that has been characterizing his pictorial output for years: He is not literally painting landscapes but adopts the flow and movement he sees in nature in order to address questions about the medium itself. As such, all of his works are to be viewed primarily as exercises in color, composition, line quality, opacity, sheen, and the physical interaction between paint, brush, canvas and the artist himself. Friedman’s works are central points in a descending spiral of deepening meanings: reflecting images, multilayered interpretations, an ever-changing disposition ranging from mere force, in-depth analysis and scrutiny to the gentle revisiting of past themes, thoughts and experiences. The works in the exhibition ‘Island’ were composed during the COVID-19 pandemic where the artist worked in solitude, only in close proximity to his art, family and nature. These works seem of city noise, fluid and peaceful, as if created based on the memories of a trip in a far-away island that never happened. When looking at the works as a whole, one cannot avoid thinking of the ways we are all a little more isolated at this time, and also a bit more familiar to a romanticized island way of life.