Terri Friedman, a California-based mixed-media fiber artist and educator, is renowned for her large, vibrant, and tactile “yarn paintings” and weavings. Born in Colorado and educated at Brown University and the Claremont Graduate School, she initially worked as a painter and sculptor before shifting to weaving on a floor loom after seeing a monumental Joan Miró tapestry in Barcelona about 12 years ago. She now approaches the loom with a painterly and sculptural sensibility, producing works that deliberately challenge conventional weaving norms.

“Overmuch,” the Bay Area artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, showcases 18 woven textile pieces in various sizes, created between 2019 and 2026. Friedman’s textile works encompass material objects, spatial interventions, and emotional elements. Their vibrant color palettes match the exhibition’s title, an Old English term meaning “too much” or “very much.’ Friedman reinterprets it as a sign of abundance, celebrating the richness of lived experience. Each piece begins with a word or phrase and develops through an intuitive yet organized exploration of material and color. Drawing on decades of collecting fibers, yarns, cloth, and textiles—ranging from Icelandic wool and upholstery piping to painted fibers and commercial neon acrylics—the artist uses the loom to brilliantly express sensations and mood.

Through September 18

Terri Friedman, born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado, came to weaving late in her career, inspired by one of Joan Miró’s monumental sculptures. Having leapt from a practice of painting and making kinetic sculpture, her woven artworks are boldly colorful and deeply energetic. “I draw out the piece ahead of time with diagrams of textures/fibers/colors/warp design and graph it out,” she said in 2020. “Then I select all my fibers and begin. The pre-weaving process is lengthy.” But once she gets going, “I just lose track of time. The repetition kind of puts me in a trance state.” In fact, Friedman is interested in neural pathways, in weaving away anxiety and negativity. She has given pieces names like Serotonin, Endorphins, and Dopamine. This exhibition at Anthony Meier is Friedman’s first with the gallery and focuses on work from the last 10 years. —Laura Jacobs