Indeed, there is a haunting stillness in all of Friedberg's work. Gendered scenes of violence, frustration, disappointment and aggression are enacted within that stillness. In the rough yet translucent surfaces of her paintings, a similar polarity emerges. The women and men on her stage act out their gender roles with awkwardness, dis-ease or exaggeration, exposing inconsistencies between social contract and personal behavior. Friedberg's paintings demonstrate the frailty of human nature, leaving us humble before it. We are instructed in our weakness in a gentle and sympathetic way, through a lens of translucent, harmonious space that maintains the uncanny texture of life itself.