Tom Friedman

In sculpting, many artists try to take the mundane and the unimportant and turn it in to something beautiful. Tom Friedman is no exception. From toothpick explosions to self portraits done on an Aspirin, Tom makes a point to take average, every-day materials and make them into something incredible. One thing to mention about Tom is his unusual choice of materials, even for an artist. Common mediums used to make his pieces are things like his own hair, soap, and bubblegum and yet the end product is more precise and elegant than many sculptors could do with the finest materials. Each of his sculptures not only brings a child-like essence to them but in some instances takes that feeling and puts it in a more gruesome situation.

"untitled". 2000 Tom, Friedman

As you can see from the image above, Tom has taken a horrific concept, a mangled corpse, and represented it in a child-like fashion using regular construction paper. Detail isn't sacrificed with this medium either. Tom does a good job of keeping all of the convex and concave elements of the figure he chose to represent as realistic as possible. 

"untitled". 1990, Tom Friedman

This is another good example of how his choice of medium really effects how the piece is perceived. This is a giant ball of gum that is stuck to the wall and held up by its own stickiness. From a distance, the gum almost gives off a marble-like sheen. The piece really defies gravity through this and makes it all the more interesting. Though this piece doesn't have many curvo-linear lines on it, I would label it as organic, not for its form but for the materials he used to make it. 

"untitled". 2002, Tom Friedman

This piece is a more playful one. The medium he used to create the box was actually small styrofoam balls. He basically re-purposed the balls from being inside the box as a cushioning element to actually making up the structure of the box. All of his pieces are interesting in one way or another. Be it the materials used or the concept that is being conveyed by the piece, Tom Friedman always seems to keep you on your toes.