Adam Friedman

"The Elemental and Fundamental"

Acylic, Screen Print, Gel Transfers, and Collage on Panel  18"x14"  2010

"Endurance of the Farallons"

Screen Print, Acrylic, Gel Transfers, and Collage on Panel  14"x20"  2009

"An Icelandic Orogeny"

Acrylic, Screen Print, Gel Transfers, and Collage on Panel  17"x31"  2010

"No Vestige of a Beginning, No Prospect of and End"

Screen Print, Acrylic, Gel Transfers, and Collage on Panel  16"x16"  2010

"Reclaiming Everest

Acrylic, Screen Print, Gel Transfers, and Collage on Panel  26"x15"  2010

The artist in my previous post (Robert Minervini) wrote me to recommend another artist in my own town of Portland, Oregon, Adam Friedman. So here's his work. He employs an interesting combination of media but as is typical with me, I tend to hone in on content. One notices very quickly repeated references to landscape, environment and especially geology. One of the most fascinating and difficult aspects of geology is it's dilated time scale. In geologic time, the human presence on earth is a barely perceivable blip and in geologic terms our impact upon the earth is negligible. The gradual processes of the earth's crust, it's formation, it's folding and unfolding, it's slow parade of eons has gone on long before we existed and will continue long after. This is his central theme. His occasional forays into anthrocentric environmental concerns is almost a shrug. Will we destroy ourselves? Possibly. Are we bringing about a mass extinction of unique lifeforms? Almost certainly. Ultimately the earth, and life as a whole, will barely notice we were ever here. For some, including Adam Friedman, this thought is a source of deep and abiding comfort. We are not the center of creation. We are merely witnesses to it's vast scale and scope.
To see more, go to his website: artbyadamfriedman.com