BERN.- Star is the name of the artist’s cat. Cats are no joke. They are theatrical. They take us out of ourselves, and put us back in our place. They have nine lives, a keen sense of infinity, and move at seven times our speed, from where we are sitting. Their self-care rituals are a thing to behold.

Ada Friedman’s paintings thrill us. Confronted with their plain unqualified existence, we are faced with an artist’s heroic yet humble project: Let Abstraction face Nature. Hone in on the “zero” of painting, knowing it will remain undiscovered, a Grenzbegriff.

Ada Friedman’s paintings are calendars from out of time. Meticulous records of the freedom to create, move and be still. They often take years to complete (in this show, the three principal works are each 3-4 years in the making). No process is central, but Ostranenje and defamilarisation function as a means of connection, of renewing perception. Making things strange, but substantial. This takes time.

There is much tenderness here, about what will forever stay hidden and yet remains in play. One side of the painting is hidden from the other. Layers of subtle hues, covering notes to self and other details. A chronicle of meticulous plans, their abandonment or fulfillment; many stories told. Geometric rules subverted with a light touch. An exacting shade of brown, across a can lid and the underlying scrap of jean fabric, itself bonded to silken paper and this in turn to sheets of polymers, mirrored or transparent.

“Painting is loss,” Ada will say.

What is painting as such? Pure colour radiates in contradiction to the sediments of history. Referent hangs with referent, signs exchange signals. Malevich, minus the irony, but funny. The cat looks back at you across the unspeakable void, ready to cuddle.

Ada Friedman
b. Washington, D.C., USA, 1984
Lives and works in the Texas Hill Country & Brooklyn, NY, USA

Ada Friedman’s art is rooted in paint, routine, and ritual. Her paintings exist in different fields of action and poetry; of varying spaces of concreteness, collaboration, and interiority. Works are typically double-sided; each side contains a painting unto itself which combines with its verso into a multifaceted whole. Moved by the artist’s holistic drive to conjure worlds, her approach to the medium transforms paper - her prima materia - and discreet collections of idiosyncratic materials into symphonic accord for adventurous, graceful paintings.

She has participated in institutional exhibitions at Kunsthalle Zürich (Zürich, Switzerland); University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, USA); and Socrates Sculpture Park (Queens, New York, USA).

She and her work have been featured in BOMB magazine, Brooklyn Rail, Family Time, ARTnews, Hyperallergic, Painter’s Bread, BMore Art, and more. She has had recent solo exhibitions at exhibitions at Kendra Jayne Patrick (Bern, Switzerland) and David Peter Francis (New York City, USA); and has been included in group exhibitions at Cleopatra’s (Brooklyn, USA); Safe Gallery (Brooklyn, USA); Ortega y Gasset (Brooklyn, USA); Grifter (New York City, USA); Night Gallery (Los Angeles, USA), among others.

Her second solo exhibition with the gallery takes place in October 2025; her first was in October 2022, inaugurating our then-new space. She was also one half of our duo presentation at Independent 2025 in New York..