HappenArt

Tom Friedman
Visual artist
Location: US

Tom Friedman is a concept artist known for his meticulously crafted work. In particular sculpture, painting, drawing, video and installation. Friedman studies the concepts of perception. Logical and plausible with a keen eye and great attention to detail. Made from a wide variety of sometimes unconventional materials. Such as polystyrene foam. Aluminium foil. Plastic. Thread. Paper. Clay and hair. Friedman’s work often surprises the viewer. What at first glance appears to be a simple sculpture. Or a simple painting is closer inspection turned out to be constructed from many intricate pieces that the artist has handled with a remarkable level of craftsmanship.

Dark humor.

Friedman draws on personal experiences to recreate prosaic moments of everyday life. Her work tends towards dark humor, and the artist’s dry wit and often sarcastic use of materials have distinguished her practice over the past 30 years. “Art, for me, is a context to slow down the viewer’s experience of their daily life. In order to think about things they haven’t thought about,” Friedman explains. Or to “think in a new way.” Since the early 1990s, Friedman has used an array of sophisticated processes to achieve a seemingly mass-produced appearance. His highly conceptual work engages both maximalist and minimalist aesthetics. While recalling those of Pop Art, and its practice is deeply involved in the history of sculpture.