Seth Friedman
Artist // Writer // Designer
Listen to a recent Interview with The Truth To Power Show on Radio Free Brooklyn here
ARTIST STATEMENT
I have spent my entire life creating (hopefully) interesting things, fun things, beautiful, ugly, complicated-yet-simple things that strike a balance between reverence for the past and optimism/fear about the future. I draw inspiration and influence from a variety of complementary sources: fine art, comic books, history, technology, pop art, design, and modern life. The images often take cliche characters from pop culture and present them in a different, more introspective light. The subjects are rendered reverently, but also with an expressionistic style that seeks to strip away the plastic veneer of how we came to know them in movies and tv and create a meditation on their very existence; the face behind the mask. The images use these characters as symbols to examine both the world we live in as well as the forces that drive us to create myths, monsters, heroes, goddesses and stories in general. I render the images with expression and detail to spark deeper curiosity into the subtleties of the worlds we have come to know and sometimes take for granted, and examine them more deeply, down to the crumbs that get trapped in the fibers. The goal is to immerse the viewer in the larger narratives of these hyperrealities, where these fake characters are as real as anyone else.
BIO
As a third generation artist, I basically had no choice; as soon as I could hold a pencil, it was there. Raised in and inspired by the golden age of modern pop culture in the 70s and 80s, I spent most of my youth drawing characters and creating stories. I’d always been entrepreneurial about my work, and at age 14 I created my first original comic book series with friends on stapled paper (it lasted 22 issues). I went to college and produced 2 different weekly comic strips (one funny, one a Wagnerian science-fiction stoner epic) for the campus newspaper. I’ve also worked as an interface and experience designer for most of my 20-year career. As a Gen-x’er raised pre-web, and trained in digital design, I was able to cultivate a good career as a User Experience Designer, as someone who understands the balance of digital and analog well. I graduated in '98 right as the internet took off, so I moved to San Francisco to take advantage of the dot.com boom. During that time I also explored my independent artistic leanings by doing a multitude of things like producing short films, curating a weekly underground art show, projecting my animations behind bands, throwing up illustrations wherever I could, self-publishing a novel and displaying art in galleries throughout the city. Since then I’ve also shown in Brooklyn, Jersey City and Manhattan, where I live now. My wife, Rochelle Fox, is also an experienced artist and lifelong creative soul, and you can see her amazing work here. We live right near Central Park where I continue to make artwork, write stories and design technology that helps people live better lives.
All images on this site are Copyright © 2019 Seth Friedman. All rights reserved.