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Aaron Fowler — Friends
Aaron Fowler

Friends

2015

Friends, completed in 2015, is among the early works that established Aaron Fowler's reputation for monumental assemblage painting, a practice in which the canvas gives way to reclaimed doors and the painted surface expands outward into three-dimensional space. Measuring over two meters in both height and width, the work presents a group of figures gathered around a table, a scene of intimate, communal gathering rendered through an accumulation of objects drawn from daily life. A Jordan shoe, fabric, yarn, a hair weave, a Pizza Hut box, a trash bag, a speaker, and a cardboard all press forward from the picture plane, their physical weight transforming the image into something closer to a reliquary of lived experience. This density of material is not incidental. Each object carries biographical and cultural specificity, grounding the figures in a recognizable social world and insisting on the dignity of the ordinary. Fowler's decision to work on doors is itself charged with meaning. Thresholds between interior and exterior, private and public, doors become in his hands a surface on which questions of access, identity, and belonging are literally painted. In Friends, the communal gathering depicted sits within this charged architecture, suggesting that what is being preserved and presented is not simply a moment but a world, one built from the textures, objects, and relationships that constitute Black American life. The figuration is expressive and immediate, the painted elements in oil and acrylic working in dialogue with the dimensional materials rather than competing with them, producing a unified visual language that is distinctly Fowler's own. The work's provenance is impeccable. Acquired directly from Irena Hochman Fine Art Ltd. by its current owner in 2015, Friends entered a private collection at the moment Fowler was beginning to attract serious institutional attention, a trajectory that has only deepened in the years since. For collectors seeking a significant early work that captures both the formal ambition and emotional intelligence at the core of Fowler's practice, this piece represents a rare opportunity.

Medium
Oil, acrylic, speaker, Jordan shoe, drywall, hats, fabric, photo printout, earring, cardboard, yarn, hair weave, pizza hut box, trash bag, table, on doors
Overall
Signed
Yes
Location
Janet Rady Fine Art, London

For Sale — $22000

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About this work

Aaron Fowler, Friends, 2015

Friends, completed in 2015, is among the early works that established Aaron Fowler's reputation for monumental assemblage painting, a practice in which the canvas gives way to reclaimed doors and the painted surface expands outward into three-dimensional space. Measuring over two meters in both height and width, the work presents a group of figures gathered around a table, a scene of intimate, communal gathering rendered through an accumulation of objects drawn from daily life. A Jordan shoe, fabric, yarn, a hair weave, a Pizza Hut box, a trash bag, a speaker, and a cardboard all press forward from the picture plane, their physical weight transforming the image into something closer to a reliquary of lived experience. This density of material is not incidental. Each object carries biographical and cultural specificity, grounding the figures in a recognizable social world and insisting on the dignity of the ordinary. Fowler's decision to work on doors is itself charged with meaning. Thresholds between interior and exterior, private and public, doors become in his hands a surface on which questions of access, identity, and belonging are literally painted. In Friends, the communal gathering depicted sits within this charged architecture, suggesting that what is being preserved and presented is not simply a moment but a world, one built from the textures, objects, and relationships that constitute Black American life. The figuration is expressive and immediate, the painted elements in oil and acrylic working in dialogue with the dimensional materials rather than competing with them, producing a unified visual language that is distinctly Fowler's own. The work's provenance is impeccable. Acquired directly from Irena Hochman Fine Art Ltd. by its current owner in 2015, Friends entered a private collection at the moment Fowler was beginning to attract serious institutional attention, a trajectory that has only deepened in the years since. For collectors seeking a significant early work that captures both the formal ambition and emotional intelligence at the core of Fowler's practice, this piece represents a rare opportunity.

Medium
Oil, acrylic, speaker, Jordan shoe, drywall, hats, fabric, photo printout, earring, cardboard, yarn, hair weave, pizza hut box, trash bag, table, on doors
Dimensions
overall: 219 x 247.7 x 25.4 cm
Year
2015
Signed
Hand-signed by the artist
Seen at
Janet Rady Fine Art, London

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