WHIMSICAL NATURE

The notion of paintings as windows appears frequently in theoretical texts from the renaissance period. This same metaphor is used here in Searching for Vanadis as the two panels of the painting act as windows looking out on an early spring landscape. Though the style is far from the detailed accuracy of a renaissance perspectival “window” and is in fact, much more impressionistic, as though the scene was painted to express looking out the window of a moving car. The landscape seems fleeting as the viewer passes by, just catching a glimpse of spring and the awakening of the land that comes with the season. Friend has used the reference to Vanadis for this work again calling upon her fondness of mythology, Vanadis is another name for the Norse(Germanic) goddess Freya(Freyja). Freya is commonly known as a goddess of spring and is associated with fertility, beauty, war, wealth, magic and divination.

The Airmed Series (Airmed 1, 2, and 3) is titled after the name of the Celtic goddess of herbal medicine, Airmed (or Airmid). This work finds its roots in herbalism, mythology, art history, and nature. “I was revisiting my studies in Modern Art history and at the time was really looking at the work of Cy Twombly, in particular. I loved the way his paintings seemed like the graffiti of his mind pulled out and placed onto the canvas. I was also drawn to how he often used mythological references in his work. In this painting I wanted to call on Twombly’s graphic marks and attempt to create a work that shows the idea of growth and of natural medicine related to my own connections and studies in mythology and herbalism. ” Airmed seems to grow across the panels from left to right. Friend’s paintings are often influenced by nature. This series is reflective of a painting style seen in much of her acrylic work on canvas.

Spirit of the Water is an acrylic painting on canvas created using layers of stained, poured, dripped, and brushed paint. The blue layers of paint are simultaneously meant to be the surface of water, drops of water, currents and tides, and flowing streams of water. Strangely the painting is both fluid and solid, as the blue “current” in the foreground seems to become a solid structure or form. Suggesting the hint of a figure in all this blue.