RED EIGHT:
New Paintings by Howard Friedman


Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco

April 20-26, 2014

San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, California

Curated by Benjamin Ashlock, Diego Villalobos, and Agnes Widbom

The Diego Rivera Gallery is proud to present "RED EIGHT: New Paintings", the first exhibition of
works by emerging artist and long time North Beach resident. Howard Friedman. As a self-taught and
relatively undiscovered artist. Friedman brings to his ambitious oeuvre the unfettered sensibility of the
"outsider", through an impressively engaging and enigmatic series of monochromatic paintings whose
form is nothing, if not distinctly contemporary.

Born out of the eclecticism of a global perspective, Friedman's works forge images from his long
history of world travel and diverse cultural exchanges. By appropriating used and discarded amateur
paintings from the Bay Area. Friedman then applies multiple layers of red nail polish which partially
conceal the original image, a labor-intensive process recanting minimalist painting practices, at the
same time that they assimilate diverse sources into a singular voice. The exhibition combines
Friedman's refined and multifarious images, with texts and biographical ephemera, inflecting the
paintings with a historical framework that expands this large, nuanced body of work into rich and
personal territories.



Background Note: Howard Friedman is a fictional persona (creatively/factually based on my work/life)
created by the three 4th year SFAI students and curated as a final term project.



Assorted images from the exhibit followed by images of individual paintings:

 

 

 

 

 

Images of individual paintings:



RED EIGHT 01-20x24


RED EIGHT 02-30x30


RED EIGHT 03-28x22


RED EIGHT 04-24x30


RED EIGHT 05-24x24


RED EIGHT 06-28x17


RED EIGHT 07-36x24


RED EIGHT 08-36x23


RED EIGHT 09-35x38


RED EIGHT 10-24x20


RED EIGHT 11-10x10


RED EIGHT 12-36x24


RED EIGHT 13-12x12


RED EIGHT 14-36x12


RED EIGHT 15-14x18


RED EIGHT 16-24x36


RED EIGHT 17-12x12