Ariella Friend is a contemporary artist working in an expanded field between painting, sculpture, site specific installation and public art. Through her process of researching through words, text based prompts and image searches on her digital devices, Friend is able to visually reinterpret flat images of the natural environment into three dimensional abstracted shapes and compositions that allude to the history of art, painting, minimalism and abstraction. Her practice explores themes of biophilia, species extinction, consumerism and the relationships between humans, nature and the urban environment. 

Friend is interested in the generative process of creating through her use of everyday, found materials such as timber, metal, plastic, fabrics and paper. By combining these materials with the artist techniques of painted colour and assemblage she is able to push the limits of what a painting can be. Friend’s works highlight the binaries of the analogue and digital and the intersection of the natural with the human made.