Louis Buhl & Co. is pleased to announce a new edition with artist Sam Friedman, titled Untitled. A continuation of his “Cave Paintings,” Untitled distills natural phenomena (sunset, sunrise, rainfall) down to their most essential elements of line and color. Like the New York Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s, Friedman explores abstraction in order to touch on concepts that are more existential in nature—life and death, love, spirituality, and a range of universal human emotions that allow the viewer to manifest their own pure and innate response.

It is up close to his works that Friedman’s tenacity and presence of mind is most evident, where the expanses of color are broken down into long, incremental strokes. Evident in Untitled, the progression of line work is arresting, particularly at the point where shapes change and emerge, breaking a steady expanse of slow transition to introduce another. When it comes to the paintings that inspire Friedman’s prints, the use of a long-haired brush is a vital part of his process: it holds more paint than a standard paintbrush, and the responsiveness of its pliant hairs register subtle changes in pressure, direction, and speed with exceptional fluidity.