Gabriel Evan Friedman

Artist Bio

Gabriel Friedman has been troubled since his youth by a chronic case of obsessive compulsive building disorder. It is unclear when this affliction started poking it’s devious head out, but it is apparent that Gabriel has had little luck finding any sort of cure for his ailment. There has been scant a day or two since his early days fidgeting where he could not be found surrounded by unruly piles of materials and well worn power tools.  It has been said that by 13 years of age he had created a scale model of Oklahoma City, by 14 he completed an entire skateboard park, and by 15 he was building his own cameras. Worried that Gabriel might be lost to his obsessions, his parents sent him away at a young age to little art schools all around the country in hopes that he might focus his energy. These were futile efforts to say the least.  After “studying” (or making tremendous messes) at half a dozen art schools from coast to coast, Gabriel’s disorder got the best of him and he disappeared for nearly a decade. No one is sure where he was during these lost years, but all the leading experts agree that Gabriel was probably lost in a state of constructive delirium. Thankfully he returned to civilization recently with a new sense of creative focus, finding a new sort of calm with ever louder tools at his disposal. While going to blacksmithing, furniture making, welding, cabinetry and possibly a few other craft schools he found that only by creating extremely large, overly complicated, tremendously inventive and wildly silly thangs was he able to find peace with his lifelong disorder. So here is his, building these ever larger, always more stimulating preposterous structures for the wonderful people in his communities. 

Artist Work

Title: Unexpected Us
Category: Visual Art
Genre: Sculpture
Description: I created this with Denise Duong in 2019. It lives at upper Scissortail park in OKC. It is made of over 2000 locally and sustainably harvested willow shoots (and a little steel and treated wood) 
16' tall, 22' wide, 12' deep

Title: Trash Monster
Category: Visual Art
Genre: Sculpture
Description: This work was commissioned by OKC Beautiful to address issues of trash and litter. It is completely made of trash I and volunteers collected in and around OKC. I collaborated with Denise Duong on the image of the girl. This work currently lives in Lower Scissortail Park.
18' tall, 13' wide, 13' deep

Title: Booya Car
Category: Visual Art
Genre: Sculpture
Description: This work lives on the Lake Stanley Draper bike trails. It was completed in 2019 with funds from the 1% for public art initiative. It is made from a 1959 Buick Le Saber and steel.
16' tall, 8' wide, 6' deep

Location

 73106