‍ ‍Celia Pearl Friedrich is a visual artist from St. Louis, Missouri. She earned her BFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in painting from Webster University in 2026. Her practice is rooted in self-reflection and examines trauma, mental health, addiction, and identity through process-based and performance-driven work.

Working from staged reenactments of personal memory, Friedrich uses video, photography, and painting to re-enter and reinterpret lived experiences. These performances often begin with revisiting past environments and bodily states, including the clothing and conditions tied to periods of treatment and recovery. Rather than treating memory as fixed, her work approaches it as something unstable and continually reshaped through repetition and return. 

A recurring neon yellow, drawn from hospital-issued “fall risk” socks worn during psychiatric treatment, functions as a central visual and conceptual element. It appears as a spreading, stain-like presence across her work, symbolizing addiction, psychological instability, and the lasting impact of destructive cycles. The color resists aestheticization, confronting the tendency to romanticize substance use and instead emphasizing its consuming and pervasive effects.

Friedrich’s imagery often features fragmented, multiplied figures that reflect emotional disorientation and shifting states of self. These works explore the tension between past and present identity, often positioning the body as a site of internal conflict and reflection. Across her practice, she is interested in how repeated engagement with memory can reveal what has been suppressed or avoided, and how meaning emerges through the act of revisiting rather than resolving experience.

Contact:

celiapearlart@gmail.com