Hovering between Heraclitus and Heisenberg, Barbara Friedman’s recent paintings confront the viewer with a certain uncertainty. As painterly embodiments of the ancient Greek philosopher’s assertion that “Nothing endures but change,” the new works accomplish the seemingly self-contradictory task of freezing time and motion while simultaneously conveying their existence as phenomena. And though apparently depicting traditional scenes and events – Passing Truck; Pink Garage; Blue Trampoline – Friedman portrays a non-deterministic universe, a world of probability and potential similar to the vision promulgated by quantum mechanics. Somewhat contradictory to the “observer effect” that is often linked to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, however, in the case of Friedman’s work, the viewer rather than the event is transformed.

Writing about her recent work, Barbara Friedman states:

The paintings examine the vagueness of appearances and the need to keep renegotiating one’s bearings. As distillations of passing moments they speak to an elevated sense of mortality but also to a feeling of being optically over-powered.