Ysla Battrell Gallery’s 2nd anniversary celebration and
Opening for Kate Friedman Friday May 7, 6:30-9:30
Rsvp by May 1st to Kate Friedman
Cursive/Recursive Mixed media on mylar
My work seeks a common language: of nature and technology, the rational and the intuitive, order and complexity, the mark of the hand and the mark of the machine.
My previous paintings and photographs provide the history and material for my current work. I scan, photograph and manipulate my images digitally, then print these altered forms on large sheets of frosted mylar. Mining my own work, I paint, draw, collage, edit, reassemble on the print, in both meditative and analytic exploration, responding to multiple layers of underlying information. Sometimes it is difficult to tell which parts of the works are made by hand and which are printed by the machine — raising issues of self-appropriation and the mechanical reproduction of my original work.
Variations of scale and fractalization occur in recursive patterns, referencing visible structures in nature, microscopic, or macroscopic views. This work may also suggest complex network visualization in topography and computing—though the data may be overwhelming, and the results inconclusive.
Kate Friedman works in both traditional and hybrid digital media, installation, graphic/ environmental design, and letterpress printing. She has exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, ArtFutura/Chicago, The Cliff Dwellers Club, WomanMade Gallery, SoHo20 Chelsea Gallery, New York, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, North Carolina, and others. Friedman’s work is represented in the permanent collections of the Phillip Morris Foundation, the Chicago History Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, and the design archives of the Society of Typographic Arts. Upcoming exhibitions include the a solo show at the South Shore Arts Center, Indiana. Public art commissions for 2010 include two site-specific installations at Openlands Lakeshore Preserve, Illinois, where she also designed the identity and interpretive signage.
Award-winning design projects include identity and signage for The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool in Lincoln Park, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and publications and identity for many arts and non-profit organizations nationally. Friedman was an artist-in-residence for the City of Evanston, and at Ragdale. She received a Grellner Scholarship at Oxbow School of the Arts, and holds a BA in Cultural History from Earlham College.
