One doesn’t look at Warner Friedman’s paintings, one looks through them. Meticulously crafted canvases lay the foundation for 3-D landscapes that invite viewers to step into the canvas and enter another world.
A voyeur of nature, Friedman defines his works by the elements one looks through — a doorway, fence, gate, porch, railing or other architectural framework. Beyond is a realistic depiction of the ocean, a farmer’s field, a rocky shore or any “perfect moment,” as Friedman describes them.
“I’m looking for something austere, a calm kind of beauty,” he says. “When the light is just right.”
Many of the images in Friedman’s paintings come from his travels throughout the East Coast, as well as abroad. Born and raised in New York, Friedman spent a great deal of time in Maine and Massachusetts, where he currently lives. The latter provided the inspiration for his landscapes series.
“I was in Nantucket one day and noticed how the sun struck the edges of a porch and railing. I made a quick drawing, went into the studio and started building models of archways, gates, etc.,” he recalls. “Then, I started driving around with a trunk full of frames that I used to see the effect light had on the architectural environment.”
Whether Friedman is painting an image of a winter scene, rivers and lakes, or the sandy beaches of Florida, he features a different landscape in every painting. Most recently, “the water and horizon have been grabbing me,” he says.
On the surface, it appears that Friedman’s artistry is responsible for giving his paintings that “being there” feel. In reality, it’s what lies beneath that is key to achieving this desired effect. With the mastery of a mathematician, Friedman skillfully and precisely crafts his flat canvases to create the perspective he wants to illustrate. Such a carefully executed approach comes naturally to Friedman, who received his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Clarkson College in New York.

“I’ve always been a precisionist; I’ve always loved precise things,” he says. “But it’s more me than the engineer in me. Some people say, ‘You go to a lot of trouble to make your paintings,’ but it’s just my personality, the way I’ve always been.”
Though Friedman drew all the time as a child and even won awards for his work, he never knew what it meant to be an artist. So, while working as an engineer, Friedman began taking night classes at Pratt Institute in drawing and design. Serendipitously, he was made aware of Cooper Union, the only private, full-scholarship college in the United States dedicated exclusively to preparing students for the professions of art, architecture and engineering. He passed the entrance test and became a full-time art student.
“Engineering left me, so to speak, and then I really started applying myself and discovered what it meant to be an artist,” he says. “Nothing gets wasted in your life, you know.”
Over the years, Friedman dabbled in Realism, modernism and Abstract Expressionism, but one theme kept resurfacing — his love of mathematic precision.
He then began creating abstract geometric paintings — a series he worked on for 15 years and exhibited in galleries throughout New York. “Slowly, I noticed the illusion of 3-D space creeping in,” Friedman says. “The blues became the skies; the structures became the landscapes.” Thus was the beginning of his current oeuvre.
An artist for 45 years, Friedman already knows what’s next on the horizon. “I’m going to do a series of windows,” says Friedman, who is continuously changing his perspective.
Friedman has shown his work in group and one-man gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the country. Many of them have been in Florida at the Carone Gallery in Fort Lauderdale and at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, where one of his pieces is among its permanent collection. And in Boca Raton, his work has been exhibited at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the Freites-Revilla Gallery, and Elaine Baker Gallery, who exclusively represents him in South Florida.
For more information on Friedman’s artwork, call Elaine Baker Gallery at 561/241-3050.