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:
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