Saskia Friedrich

in memoriam, 2020
Painted wood
8 by 5 feet

For the show Drive-By-Art I am presenting a work that is in memoriam of people who have passed during this crisis of Covid-19. I am encouraging the idea of spectators to participate in sharing their vision of what is learned from this crisis and what everyone would like to see emerge in the future. The sculpture will be presented at the curb in front of our house. I will have disposable chalk pieces available next to the sculpture for passers-by and visitors to share their hopes and thoughts and names of loved ones written onto the sculpture. The sculpture represents a continuum of life within death and death within life. 

Artist statement
As a biological system/entity I try to procure instruments and tools in the form of pictograms and as object enactors that tell stories about my existence, myths which goal to denote my consciousness . My work draws from the membrane separating mind as biology and biology as mind, opening pores between the world of dreams and the world of cells. An ancient Sufi sage has said that ‘the reality of knowledge is bewilderment.’ For me, this bewilderment exists as a state of enraptured Wonderment. I am nature experiencing itself as a pendulum swinging between existence and non-existence, a continual motion between being and non identity. Through focused intention, I hope to give creative autonomy to the act of creation. I am a translator, a perceiver, that creates an output in the form of tangible objects that formulate a reciprocal experience. 

The exploration of myself as nature intensely informs me. Beings in their psycho-spiritual, emotional, and political landscapes permeate my perceptions. I like to contemplate evolutionary movements involving the topology of microcosmic bubble-futures. I am continually hoping for the best outcomes in this shared journey on planet earth. This hope is not passive but activated by intense inner and outer focus and generated into my work. 

My work centers around faith in the creative process as an intellectual pursuit, as research into the foundations of humanness. The architecture of this pursuit takes the form of a kind of blind trust: that the creative connection is present as the innate basis of human presence . The interrelation of oneself, one’s environs and the actual perplexity of being a conscious organism forms a complex web, the filaments of which unravel as glimpses into mystery. 

As a translator and generator of thoughtscapes and perceptions, my intention is to keep these filaments of communication untethered from fragmentation in thought, in order to tap into the subtle infinities contained within the universality of nature. I am deeply intrigued by the morphology of flows of creation. The contemplation of the moment when the connection takes place, and something is born into the world is very exciting and is always new. In my work narratives are not linear but act as points of reference, trees with tangled limbs of love and presence. 

‘fields of experience, lines of perception, ubiquitous dreaming, content, color, line, context image is expression, line is impression wonder-worlds of knowing’

Saskia Friedrich
in memoriam, 2020
Painted wood
8 by 5 feet

Biography
Saskia Friedrich (b. Munich, Germany) earned a BFA at School of Visual Arts in New York, NY. The artist has participated in exhibitions at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY; Galerie MaxWeberSixFriedrich, Munich, Germany; Willoughby Sharp Gallery, New York, NY; Achim Kubinski Gallery, New York, NY; Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY; Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY; Autobody, Bellport, NY; and Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY, among others. Friedrich was the 2018 artist-in-residence at The Watermill Center, Watermill, NY. Friedrich’s work draws on multiple systems of thought and eclectic fields of interest: ecological architecture, sustainable cities, bio-structures, Sufi mysticism, and the tradition of whirling. She continues to concern herself with art expressed as environment and its relationship to oneself and others. With a meditative approach, Friedrich views her role as both a translator and perceiver deeply informed by nature. The work on display appropriately feels both terrestrial, and cosmic.