Artist:
Daniel Freaker
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Daniel Freaker received his MFA at the Slade School of Art, prior to attending the art schools, Camberwell College and Central St Martins. His early work explored the painterly possibilities of print, video, film and photography, with these interests evident in the narrative of his more recent paintings suggesting fragments of film scenes.
Existing between abstraction and figuration, Freaker’s work places equal value on application as well as subject – the way in which paint is applied is equally as important as what it depicts. Some details may be carefully defined whilst other passages of paint might suggest a feeling or an idea. This way of working allows Freaker to build up dense pictorial surfaces and textures into paintings which are at once nostalgic and beautiful.
Also present are more unusual processes, generating that sense of nostalgia. The subjects are often individuals, couples or groups of people to provoke thoughts of relationships. The scenes may remind us of personal experiences, where the techniques and colours bring feelings of sentiment and longing with a contemporary twist of warmth and radiance. Distortions also exaggerate the emotional significance of the moment: connection, loss or vulnerability, for example. This juxtaposition between vibrance and darkness, accident and intention, order and chaos, is what makes the work memorable and connects the viewer. More recently Freaker has focused on the landscape itself, leaving the figures out of the composition, but including buildings and vegetation, using his well recognised vocabulary of vibrant colours, patterns and brushstrokes.
Daniel Freaker's practice has evolved in parallel with an academic career lecturing in art and design throughout the UK and internationally, including; University of Bath, The British Museum, Dae Won University, Korea, and The Meera Gallery, Pune, India. He also writes examination papers and has been a course leader at Bath University and education consultant at UAL.
He has been the recipient of numerous awards and included in many group exhibitions and solo shows throughout the UK and abroad, including: Into Tomorrow, solo show, Unpolished Design, Uzes, France (2023); The One With All The Squares III, group show, El Paso Frame Co., Texas; Manchester Contemporary, with Air Gallery, UK; Perfected Imperfections, group show, Kaicen Fragrance House (2023); Battersea Autumn AAF, NoonPowell Gallery (2023); Red, group show, Foxyard Studio Gallery, Stowmarket, UK (2023); RBSA Prize 23, group show, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Birmingham (2023); UK Covid-19 Inquiry Commemorative Tapestry, collaborative work, London (2023); Sunny Art Prize, group show, Sunny Art Centre, London (2023); Promised Moments, solo show, One Paved Court, London (2022);
Royal Birmingham Society of Artists art Prize, group show, RBSA Gallery (2022); Bubble in the Grass, online group show, Janet Rady Fine Art (2022); Between Us, solo exhibition, NoonPowell gallery, London (2022); Scenes We've all Seen, solo exhibition, Oxmarket Contemporary (2022); Hampstead AAF, NoonPowell Gallery, London (2022); Battersea Autumn AAF, NoonPowell Gallery, London, (2022); The Other Art Fair, London (2022); Codes of the Unconscious, The Holy Art Gallery, London, (2022); Objet D’Art, The Holy Art Gallery, London (2021); Aura, Holy Art, London (2021); Boredom is Not a Luxury, Craft Central, London (2021); Sussex Art Fair (2021); Geometric, Oxmarket Gallery Chichester (2017); Rewire, Guildhall Chichester, (2016); RITUAL, Oxmarket Gallery, Chichester (2016); Basis, Oxmarket Gallery, Chichester (2015); Book Arts, Saatchi Gallery Education Room (2013); Next, St. Bartholomews Chapel, Chichester (2013); Foundation Art & Design Celebration with Grayson Perry, The British Museum, London (2012).