ARCADE | Koffler Arts Article

Discovering a Room You Didn’t Know Existed

Arcade speaks with Toronto artist Nancy Friedland on what drove her mid-career transition from conceptual photography to painting, and how the anticipation of grief lay at the heart of much of her work.

By Chris Frey, August 20, 2024

Nancy Friedland in her Toronto studio (Photo: Rylan Perry)

“Basically, all of this is a bit of a midlife crisis,” says Nancy Friedland, gesturing at the collection of new paintings mounted on the wall of the fourth-floor studio space she shares in downtown Toronto. “I wanted to get back to messing with the surface of the image,” she adds. “I don’t know how or why, but I knew that I needed to get physical with whatever I was going to start making again.”

Exhibition: I Wish I Had a River

Exhibition: I Wish I Had a River

smoke the moon (Santa Fe, NM) marks the advent of summer with I Wish I Had a River, a solo exhibition of new work by Toronto based painter Nancy Friedland. Friedland’s paintings rush forward in a wellspring of emotion, alchemizing small moments into glimmers of tenderness.

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CBC Arts Article

What does it mean to be a 'recovering photographer'?

Nancy Friedland's startling photo-like paintings capture something her camera never could

Chris Hampton · CBC News · Posted: Feb 21, 2024 4:27 PM EST

Over two decades, Nancy Friedland built her career in art as a photographer. She was represented by a respected Toronto gallerist, she won grants and her work attracted collectors. Then, suddenly, she found she couldn't take another picture — not as art, at least. 

Her photography was always "clever" and conceptual, she says, like a traditional portrait series where potted plants assumed the role of the sitter. But when Friedland embarked on a rather personal, and therefore, uncharacteristic photo project about her family — positioning them as the stars of her own sky — something shifted inside of her.

"It just felt so much better to say something directly than the wink and nudge of my earlier practice," she says. "Once I found that genuine connection with my work, I just wanted to take it even further … [Photography] was like a completed journey."