Artist Statement

Ada Friedman

I see my paintings as holders of my dancing mind and the vitality of my studio. In Performance Proposal, Pathwork: Floor 1 (2021–22), individual marks—from wiping excess paint off my brush while walking past—are visible on translucent Mylar. This painting defined my studio-walking path; its negative space was where I stepped. I paced this loop at least fifteen times daily, marking another painting at the turn. This ritual, born from my need to energize myself and transition my focus from teaching and heartbreak to studio work, was shaped by the architecture of my studio at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville. This physical routine became the foundation for Pathwork (2021–), performatively recasting a rather mundane and ludic private studio dance into a layered artwork. These works highlight negative space and are a kind of navigation. Bearing titles like Floor, Threshold, Wall, and Ceiling, these paintings are linked to my studio architecture. I connect mapping space in a drawing or painting with bodily movements such as pacing, thus relating drawing and painting intrinsically to performing.

Transparency is central to my process, as metaphor and material choice. I layer translucent coats of handmade acrylic paint over marked-on enmeshed papers and fabrics, creating flexible terrain and fields of color. With close observation, one can read text on the painting’s surface. The words are handwritten messages to myself that range from notes about the painting moves I want to make next, to frustrations that I have, to song lyrics running through my head, to drawn symbols, and beyond. I structure how I make my paintings to reveal my process, thereby putting who I am in the studio on open display.

Time is a core intellectual and creative interest of mine. Time as a tool and the notion of time as non-linear and multi-directional motivates me. Researching different traditions in marking time thus works to decouple time from the Western-originated Gregorian calendar and modern capitalism. Rituals such as parades, coming of age marker celebrations, and moon cycles, fascinate me. Taking this combination of living/making/researching further, I want my drawings to show that they are an ongoing physical routine practice. In this vein, I utilize self-awareness reflection tools, such as the Mandala, the labyrinth, and the calendar. These formats structure two of my ongoing bodies of work: Everyday Drawings (2017-) and Studio Check-In Forms (2020-).

This informs my long-term use of world making and storytelling to help energize and contextualize my work. Creating atmosphere and context, which sometimes takes the form of writing a script, has become a grounding, guiding force in the studio. I believe in welcoming ghosts; cultivating a relationship with the work of artist and writer Rosemary Mayer, whose estate I worked on for over eight years, and the poet Helen Adam, whose writing I discovered in a Poets Theater Anthology I was pointed towards in graduate school. I imagine ongoing conversations with them. One way I do this is by using their descriptive esoteric texts as a jumping-off point for creating imagery in my paintings. I am constantly seeking new ways to create collectivity in my studio and work as an active politic of inclusion, place-making, and an opener for chance happenings to occur in the work and the world it creates -a given when I activate my paintings and installations in live-unrehearsed performances by artist friends.

December 2024