“…Lance Friedman, from our Chicago gallery, was recently listed by Glass Magazine as one of the new talents from the millennium.”

This is the first International Glass Invitational for Lance Friedman and we are very excited about presenting his work. His interpretation of his sculpture is as follows. “My work concerns objects taken out of context. Irony and paradox are abundant in the natural world and are magnified when viewed in a gallery setting. By changing the scale, material and habitat of natural, anatomical and utilitarian entities, order and function are offset by a new preciousness inherent in the desire to understand their context in the world.”

“Friedman is the kind of artist who will sometimes tell little while always offering a path that will tell more, drawn more to essences than to exaggerations, and always preferring the mysterious possibilities of poetry over the blatant surety of prose. He is also an artist whose work seems more organized by the generosity of his attitude than by the application of a rigid pictorial style, by his state of mind more than by a fixed approach to his subject matter.”

James YoodNorthwestern University, Habatat Galleries, Chicago, 1999

“The works of Lance Friedman have titles which read like chapters in a novel. Like a rebus these titles become puzzles composed of words or syllables that later appear in the form of objects. The objects that comprise these works are much like isolated thoughts arranged in such a way as to trigger multiple associations.”

Michael RogersAssociate Professor, Glass Art, Aichi University of Education, Japan, 1999

“Lance Friedman is an artist who has constantly explored the many possibilities that his art presents. We are directed by Friedman's maturity as an artist through an assortment of three-dimensional sculptures that attracts us first by the pure workmanship of the material. These pieces display a quality of completeness that is both masterful and Zen-like.”

Robert M. DonleyProfessor Emeritus, DePaul University, 2001

“Among the many admirable qualities in the work of Lance Friedman is its uncanny ability to make viewers slow down to examine these pieces carefully, to sense this is truly an art of nuance and subtlety, all done by an artist who understands that the act of patient and intense looking can often provide an aperture to deeper understanding.”

Nominated as “New Talent for the Millennium” by James Yood, Art critic and educator

Something New Under The Sun: High-fire Enamels

“Hopper mentioned a man living in Chicago who is doing some interesting work with these enamels.”

Lance Friedman: “I fell in love with these high-temperature enamels immediately! I initially started as a painter. Expressionism, Chicago Funk, The Hairy Who, Carl Winsum, Erwin Fish – these are all influences on my work. A lot of Chicago sculptures also. I think sculpture and painting are very hard to meld together. It is a real challenge to combine a painterly technique in a sculptural form without making either seem like an afterthought.”