Aidan Anne Frierson is an Artist and Educator from Chicago, primarily practicing Handmade Papermaking. Her practice prioritizes Cotton, emphatically positing the material as “the reason Why We Are Here.”
Frierson’s work is a contemporary retrospective rooted in living, feeling, autobiography, and archive; she reflects on both personal and collective experiences, interconnections of the past, present, in-between and in-beyond. Cotton serves as a vessel for Frierson to physically process what is lived and what is felt. Through Handmade Papermaking, she activates material by engaging with color, texture, size, pattern and form. Frierson investigates form by physically embedding remnants and material motifs that connect life, place, and narrative; this process honors history as material. Frierson’s work is a culmination––a form––of material storytelling and diaristic cartography that reflect memory’s interdependent relationship with reality.
Frierson’s public programming, education work, and cultural practice has shown up collaboratively in spaces such as: Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Park District, Chicago Torture Justice Center, Chicago Art Department, University of Illinois at Chicago Montgomery Ward Gallery, Marwen, Time Being Tattoo, Flower World Tattoo, Dieu Donné, Hook Pottery & Paper, Sitter Studio NYC, Smart Museum of Art, and Penland School of Craft.
