Nancy Friedemann: Me As We, We As Me

Nancy Friedemann appropriates handiwork from women’s culture; table runners, lace curtains, knitting, crochet, and other domestic crafts are often painted on a heroic scale.

Like other artists of the Pattern and Decoration school of art, Friedemann reminds us that “decorative” is not a dirty word. In this exhibit, Me as We, We as Me, all of the paintings are executed on dibond, using enamel paint set against a black background; the images appear to be shimmering, seductive, and ghostly.

Memory and sensitivity play a fundamental role in these paintings. Friedemann incorporates the flora and fauna of her native Colombia, as well as the intricate lace made by women, often seen in colonial paintings. Friedemann says that, “in unraveling and drawing lace structures I am doing research into drawing, and creating a poetic path that marks time and expresses humanity.”

Brightly colored bunting birds appear exotic, signifying bridged cultural connections that are established through migration. Friedemann also alludes to details that may be lost in translation and stereotypes that are perpetuated. In the work, On the Margins of a Portrait, a bird carries a ribbon, the type of which can be seen in colonial retablos. The message reads, “Do you want a taco?”, and is a metaphor for the way Latinos are often stereotyped.

To quote Friedemann, “the intensive labor in making each of my works is about slowness, feeling and thinking; it is about doing a work that honors manual labor and where I manage an economy of materials. Each mark is indelible. Not being able to erase, I use enamel on a pristine industrial surface. For me, this is an important and deliberate act as an echo of the trajectory, the steps that one takes one by one in time and space. Poetically, for me, the impossibility of erasing is a metaphor of the psychological threshold that connotes existing in exile…”

In a beautiful veiled manner, much like lace, Friedemann deals with issues that are relevant to what we are currently experiencing with American immigration laws. With subtle irony, she asks us to recall our own memories and remember that ours is a country whose entire population consists of citizens whose heritages originate from all parts of the world.