In the article Local Artist Returns Home with a New Show, Nancy Kirsch talks about how Leslie Friedman became the installation artist and printmaker she is today (and the stops she made on the way): A political science major at Brown University, she found deep satisfaction in making silk-screening posters of local rock-and-roll bands with whom she was friendly. In fact, her art work is one of the reasons she cited for not taking a junior year abroad to study. Having lived all her life in Rhode Island, she planned to travel around the world for a year after graduating…

I am so honored the design-centric blog Pattern Pulp has covered my crowd-sourcing effort and upcoming project Half Piped Ideas. In the commentary, Pattern Pulp head curator Shayna Kulik says it best, “Bringing art to the masses for functional use is always a complicated endeavor, though her plan is impressive.”  Thank you for the vote of confidence and for getting the project out to your audience, Pattern Pulp!

The local DC blog Free in DC used my image of Temple Tile to advertise the opening of the National Small Works Exhibition at Washington Printmaker’s Gallery. So much fun to see my work act as a representative of this diverse show! The opening is Saturday, August 4th from 1 – 4pm in their relatively new Silver Spring location. Pyramid Atlantic Art Center 2nd Fl. | 8230 Georgia Ave. Silver Spring, MD 20910 | 301-273-3660

Philadelphia Inquirer just covered a group show I am in at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art. The author, Edith Newhall,  points to a few works to describe curator Julien Robson’s “attraction to art that pushes beyond the expectations of its particular medium – and that refuses to be easily categorized.” Two of the more obvious examples of resistance in Robson’s exhibition are Virginia Maksymowicz’s fulsome Panis Angelicus, a cast plaster sculpture of what appears to be an upper section of a Corinthian column overflowing with cast-plaster loaves of bread and broken plaster ornamentation, and Leslie Friedman’s Tasty, an installation…

Leslie Friedman – DonArtNews.com By Don Brewer In an interview. “The way that I collage is a 21st Century way of collage-ing.  It’s using the internet to get all my imagery, finding things and altering them.  So, I’m not cutting up magazines or photographs, my collage is all done on line…I feel like this young generation, whatever you want to call it, uses the internet so fluidly.”

The Curator: Fake Sugar and Sugarhouse – Critical Mass By Courtney Sexton An excerpt from the review: “With its electric colors and alluring shine, “Tasty” is an awesome homage to Pop Art – oversized cans of Coke Zero take over the floor of the gallery, spilling out hot-pink plastic liquids. Scattered among the cans are giant packages of Truvia, Splenda, and Sweet ‘N’ Low, and hanging from the ceiling is a Warhol-esque triptych of a wide-eyed woman’s open mouth getting more of that pink liquid poured into it from a shiny can of substitute … something.”

Leslie Friedman’s Tasty at Napoleon – The ArtBlog by Libby Rosof Excerpt from review: “In a world where James Rosenquist painted a deadpan F-111 with a mixture of adoration and dread, so Friedman creates her salvation and her nemesis with equal ambivalence. It’s here, in this ambivalence, combined with sexual messages about desire, and cultural messages about women, their roles and their value, that this seemingly simple installation finds its not-so-simple content.”

Leslie Friedman at Napoleon – Printeresting by Amzen Emmons Excerpt from review: “A polemic of a print installation, Tasty pounces on ones visual sensibilities the moment you enter the intimate gallery space. Friedman has a virtuous ability with screen printing, and she deploys it ruthlessly here, with a pallet of high-key colors reminiscent of some kind of a Mentos explosion.”

“Introductions 2012” Opens – City Suburban News CitySuburbanNews_2-1-12 pdf download “CFEVA’s Career Development Program is a highly selective fellowship with only a 2% acceptance rate.  This years applicant pool was 352 artists with just 6 new fellows being selected.  These six artists represent some of the most promising talent among emerging artists in the region: Leslie Friedman, Daniel Gerwin, Rebecca Gilbert, Kay Healy, Heechan Kim, and Johanna Inman.”

Weekly Update–A Great Big Woot! from Tyler’s graduating MFA’s – By Roberta Fallon “Also playful is Leslie Friedman’s “Sukkot Ramp,” a hand-serigraphed path of linoleum tiles that runs up what looks to be a skateboard ramp on one wall and dead-ends after a hairpin turn in a wall without a ramp. Why she created a suicidal Jewish holiday skateboard ramp is something I couldn’t figure out.”