Looking at the Sun

Charley Friedman is a multi-disciplinary artist whose body of work explores themes of self-identity and how we perceive and categorize ourselves and those around us. His language is generally playful and investigative, using variety of media including performance, sculpture, photography and drawing. In the gallery, Omi presents Looking at the Sun an expansive exhibition of Friedman's sculptures, drawings and prints. The gallery exhibition playfully extends out into the fields, where Friedman has crafted a gang of over 70 mischievous bronze squirrels for The Fields Sculpture Park. 

The role "character" is essential to Friedman's work. The artist explores impersonating characters himself, an excersie through which he often investigates his heritage, as evident in the photograph Chasid in the Woods (2015). 

Friedman writes: "The themes in my new body of work reflect my preoccupations with how individuals, nations and cultures form and transmit ideas and values. How we perceive each other and ourselves and how we invent systems to categorize our own egocentric worldview."