Damon Freed: Landscapes by Bruno David Gallery

DA M O N F R E E D LANDSCAPES

bruno david gallery

DAMON FREED LANDSCAPES

January 12 - February 18, 2017 Bruno David Gallery 7513 Forsyth Boulevard St. Louis, MO 63105 U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Owner/Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition “Damon Freed: Landscapes” Editor: Bruno L. David Catalogue Designer: Ashley Lee and Thomas J. Fruhauf Designer Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Damon Freed and Bruno David Gallery Cover image: Untitled #10 (detail), 2015 Oil on canvas 26 x 34 inches (66 x 86.40 cm) First Edition Copyright © 2017 Bruno David Gallery All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery

CONTENTS

DAMON FREEDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; S LANDSCAPES BY DENNIS HELSEL Afterword BY BRUNO L. DAVID CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION BIOGRAPHY

DAMON FREEDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S LANDSCAPES by Dennis Helsel

Damon Freed’s landscape paintings remind the viewer that a true act of sight involves equal parts looking and feeling. When we look out from our minds into the world, we may gather the appearance of things, but it is only through feeling that we begin to truly see. Damon Freed’s landscapes assert the mysterious truth that we each reinvent the world in our own eyes. Through the medium of landscape painting, Freed invites us to more deeply consider how our feelings can shape and transform what we actually see. Before anything else can be said, one must acknowledge that Damon’s work begins with an impulse to capture. One does not travel out into nature as an artist without the intent to bring something back. What Damon brings back to the studio are charcoal drawings which record the energy and feeling of his experience communicating with the environment through his eyes. There would be enough to discuss if the process ended here, but it is in the next phase of his work that Damon truly brings the land to life. While many landscape painters strive to paint the land through the earthy colors of natural appearance, Damon seeks to reanimate the spirit and energy of the land through the bold colors and expressive marks of spontaneity. It is as if Damon recreates the experience of nature within himself as he renders a new reality within the painting. Infused with the full measure of thought and feeling which brought them into being, the landscape comes to life again in the paintings. While Damon acknowledges a debt of gratitude to the Post-Impressionist and Fauvist painters of the past for informing his color usage, there is something uniquely joyful about Damon’s use of color. There is a curious and unrestrained sincerity and optimism about these landscapes. They seem to come from a place of pure and untouched sentiment so rare to see in an age of unrelenting irony and cynicism. If we can learn anything from the landscape paintings of Damon Freed it is that the world has more to offer than its appearance alone suggests. However to access the hidden realm of the landscape we must see with more than our eyes and experience the land with the feeling in all of our senses. Damon’s paintings exist as an invitation and an offering to experience nature through fresh eyes.

Dennis Helsel is an artist, and a writer. He lives and works in Kansas City, MO. This text is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.

Afterword BY BRUNO L. DAVID

I am pleased to present a new exhibition titled “Landscapes” by Damon Freed at the Bruno David Gallery. This is his fifth exhibition with the gallery. Freed works directly from nature to create his charcoal drawings and makes fully chromatic oil paintings from the drawings afterwards inside of the studio. This is his process and much to do with the final paintings stems from the initial energy invested and displayed onto the surface of the drawings. The early marks in the drawings, the bold zags and swipes and squiggles feed the color and excitement of the paintings. It must be said that his color is not naturalistic, or, at least not naturalistic in its faithfulness to nature. His color is faithful to his spirit, to the spontaneity and pizzazz of his sitting in nature in the spring and summer communing with the light of the sun, the invigorating wind, and amongst the delight of fresh cut grass, new growth, and scented flowers. His pictures are as much depictions of himself in this way as they are of the internal structure and sensations of nature. His indebtedness is to the Post-Impressionist’s and to the Fauve’s use of color. It was van Gogh, Gauguin, Derain and Gabriele Munter and Matisse and Kandinsky that first utilized arbitrary coloration to fulfill their inner emotions and stylistic desires. Therefore, his paintings follow, in a way, this tradition of individualistic correspondence with nature. Damon Freed works and lives in Missouri. He received a M.F.A. from Hunter College, New York, and a B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dennis Helsel for his thoughtful essay. I am deeply grateful to Ashley Lee and Thomas J. Fruhauf, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Cleo Azariadis, Ashley Lee, Xizi Liu, Marisa Drewes, Charis Schneider, and Paula Stevenson.

CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

Untitled #11, 2015 Oil on Canvas 34 x 26 inches (86.4 x 66 cm)

Untitled #5, 2015 Oil on Canvas 34 x 26 inches (86.4 x 66 cm)

Untitled #2, 2015 Oil on Canvas 26 x 34 inches (86.4 x 66 cm)

Untitled #1, 2015-16 Oil on Canvas 34 x 26 inches (86.4 x 66 cm)

Untitled #14, 2015-16 Oil on Canvas 48 x 36 inches (121.9 x 91.4 cm)

Untitled #20, 2015-16 Oil on Canvas 36 x 48 inches (91.4 x 121.9 cm)

Untitled #21, 2015-16 Oil on Canvas 36 x 48 inches (91.4 x 121.9 cm)

Untitled #10, 2015 Oil on Canvas 26 x 34 inches (66 x 86.4 cm)

Untitled #12, 2015 Oil on Canvas 36 x 48 inches (91.4 x 121.9 cm)

Untitled #3, 2015 Oil on Canvas 26 x 34 inches (66 x 86.4 cm)

Untitled #23, 2016 Oil on Canvas 36 x 48 inches (91.4 x 121.9 cm)

Untitled #7, 2015 Oil on Canvas 34 x 26 inches (86.4 x 66 cm)

Untitled #19, 2016 Oil on Canvas 26 x 26 inches (66 x 66 cm)

Untitled #24, 2016 Oil on Canvas 26 x 34 inches (66 x 86.4 cm)

Untitled #15, 2015-16 Oil on Canvas 26 x 34 inches (66 x 86.4 cm)

Untitled #6, 2015 Oil on Canvas 34 x 26 inches (86.4 x 66 cm)

Untitled #8, 2015 Oil on Canvas 26 x 34 inches (66 x 86.4 cm)

Untitled #9, 2015 Oil on Canvas 26 x 34 inches (66 x 86.4 cm)

Untitled #13, 2015-16 Oil on Canvas 26 x 34 inches (66 x 86.4 cm)

Damon Freed: Landscapes (installation view)

Damon Freed EDUCATION M.F.A. Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY B.F.A. School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

SOLO EXHIBITION 2017 2016 2015 2014 2012 2011 2009

Bruno David Gallery, “Landscapes,” Saint Louis, MO (catalogue) Sager-Braudis Gallery, “Damon Freed,” Columbia, MO Bruno David Gallery, “Obstacle and Void,” Saint Louis, MO (catalogue) Daum Museum of Contemporary Art “Four Point Perspective,” Sedalia, MO Bruno David Gallery, “Damon Freed: En Plein Air,” Saint Louis, MO (catalogue) Three Rivers Community College, “Damon Freed: Grid Games,” Poplar Bluff, MO Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, “Damon Freed: Cadence,” Kansas City, MO Bruno David Gallery, “Damon Freed: Life Saver,” Saint Louis, MO (catalogue) Bruno David Gallery, “Damon Freed: Calm, Cool, Coherent,” Saint Louis, MO (catalogue)

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2017 2015 2014 2013

OVERVIEW_2017, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) AND / OR, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) In Good Company, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO Paperworks, Liberty Center Loft Gallery, Sedalia, MO OVERVIEW_2014, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Summer Invitational, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

2013 2012 2010 2009 2006 2003

Blue, White, and Red, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO December Group Show, Liberty Center Loft Gallery, Sedalia, MO October Group Show, Liberty Center Loft Gallery, Sedalia, MO RECESSION REJUVENATIONS, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO OVERVIEW_09, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Gallery Selections: Small Scale Works, Tobey Fine Arts, New York Correspondence to a Single Point: A Survey of Geometric Abstraction, Tobey Fine Arts, New York Hum, Curated by Shinsuke Aso, Tobey Fine Arts, New York The Wild Bunch, Curated by Tim Rollins, White Box Gallery, New York

GRANTS/AWARDS 2003 2002 2001 2000

Honors—School of Visual Arts, New York Juan Gonzales Award—School of Visual Arts, New York Fine Arts Departmental Grant—School of Visual Arts, New York Silas H. Rhodes Merit Scholarship—School of Visual Arts, New York Dr. Tony Racela Grant—State Fair Community College

BIBLIOGRAPHY Helsel, Dennis. Marks, Kerry. Schwartz, Martin. Hartman, Tanya. Bemiss, Faith. Bemiss, Faith. Baran, Jessica. Cooper, Ivy.

“Damon Freed’s Landscape”, Esssay, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Exhibition catalogue, 2017 “Damon Freed: An Interview”, HEC-TV, January 17, 2017 “It’s All Relative”, Missouri Life, December 9, 2016 “Selfless: The Work of Damon Freed”, Esssay, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Exhibition catalogue, 2015 “SFCC art instructors show variety of work at Daum”, Sedalia Democrat, October 3, 2014 “How Paperworks”, Sedalia Democrat, July 19-20, 2014 “Life Saver at Bruno David gallery”, Riverfront Times, December 15, 2011 “Winter wondering at Bruno David Gallery”, St. Louis Beacon, December 5, 2011

Gordon, Kara. Siegel, Kyle. Cooper, Ivy. Baran, Jessica. Weant, Nancy. Nail, Sarah.

“Calibration”, Esssay, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Exhibition catalogue, 2011 “SNJ Community Profile”, Sedalia News Journal, September 6, 2011 “Damon Freed”, St. Louis Beacon, March 19, 2009 “Damon Freed: Calm, Cool, Coherent”, Riverfront Times, March 25, 2009 “Damon Freed: Calm, Cool, Coherent”, Essay, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Exhibition catalogue, 2009 “Easy on the Eyes”, Sedalia Democrat, September 18, 2008

PUBLICATIONS “Douglass Freed: Reflective Landscapes”, Interview, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Exhibition catalogue, 2015 “Kelley Johnson: New Paintings”, Essay, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Exhibition catalogue, 2013 “Damon Freed: En Plein Air”, Poems, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Exhibition catalogue, 2012 “Damon Freed: Life Saver”, Poems, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Exhibition catalogue, 2011

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ARTISTS Laura Beard Heather Bennett Lisa K. Blatt Michael Byron Bunny Burson Judy Child Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Damon Freed Douglass Freed Ellen Jantzen

Michael Jantzen Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Xizi Liu Kahlil Irving Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Yvonne Osei Patricia Olynyk Gary Passanise Judy Pfaff

Charles P. Reay Daniel Raedeke Tom Reed Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Shane Simmons Buzz Spector Cindy Tower Ann Wimsatt Monika Wulfers