flavorpill

Sarajo Frieden works from a studio in Los Angeles that borders Thai Town, Little Armenia, and Koreatown, with Guatemalan and Salvadoran bakeries nearby. The cacophony of hand-painted signs in a variety of languages serves as both inspiration and a daily reminder that the ordinary is often extraordinary, and nothing is as it seems. A host of disparate vocabularies from the worlds of fine, folk, and decorative art — including Persian miniatures, Shaker trance drawings, Japanese ukiyo-e, and Frieden's Hungarian great aunt's embroidery — can be found wandering through her images. Using open-ended narratives, folk tales, abstraction, and the juxtaposition of discordant images, Frieden gives form to the human experience as she sees it. Frieden's work has been exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles, San Diego, North Carolina, Minnesota, New York, Rome, Venice, Naples, and Australia.