Installation View

Photo © Nic Lehoux

There’s a bit of magic in everything

    And then some loss to even things out

    Lou Reed, lyrics from his 1992 song, “Magic and Loss”

We all have experienced moments of magic and loss in our lives; the presence of both is a natural part of life. Groups of people and entire cultures can share these binding experiences. In this exhibition, married artists Charley Friedman and Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez introduce new bodies of work employing the interplay of magic and loss as a thematic and visual device.

Charley Friedman’s playful and lifelike sculptures question humankind’s dominion over the natural world. By enlarging and animating something as small and ordinary as an acorn, Friedman challenges the conventions of human scale and our tolerance for perceived unchecked and unnatural growth.

Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez’s monumental paintings intertwine the personal and political implications of colonialism and cultural hybridity. Her richly layered and bountiful still-lifes reference Spanish colonization, decorative arts, and flora and fauna from the Americas as symbols of conflict and alchemy.

Presented here as separate but related bodies of work, this exhibition invites viewers to join the artists’ conversation about creation, corruption, and destruction—and the inherent magic and loss within.

Special thanks to Kyle Nobles and Shelby Austin Tourney for their studio and exhibition assistance. The texts in Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez’s paintings are excerpted from Farid Matuk’s poems from the pair’s collaborative artist book Redolent, published by Singing Saw Press in 2022.

Statement by: Karissa Johnson, Chief Curator