Douglass Freed

“For nearly twenty years, I made non-objective grid structured paintings. I started to see references to landscape in these works. I’ve literalized those references by painting oil landscape vistas of horizons, clouds and bodies of water. These paintings consist of two or more vertical panels. Usually one panel is landscape imagery. The adjacent panels are often atmospheric voids with vestiges of recognizable landscapes.

I try to capture the mystical light found in natural atmospheric effects: the haze in the distance on humid summer days, the overcast gloom of winter skies, and the softness of landscape bathed in fog, and the quieting mood of approaching darkness. My intent is to create paintings imbued with a meditative, spiritual presence suggesting issues about time and ecology. I do this by softly modulating color, tone and value. The color varies from quiet, monochromatic works to fully orchestrated chromatic ones. By blending from one hue to another I create color which makes its self gradually felt, weeping forth. In this manner, I create illusions of mysterious emanations of light, places where ones eyes and spirit are invited to linger.

I try to imbue my work with a monumental presence, epic in both size and scope. I do this by orchestrating the separate elements of color, texture and structure into a harmonious whole. I seek a somewhat reductive image rich in value and contrast. The surface of the work is devoid of textural incidence. I don’t want anything to distract from the illusion of depth so I deny any marks which would hold the viewer on the surface of the painting. In my luminescent multi- paneled oil paintings I try to find the grey area between traditional landscape painting and its abstraction into color fields. The compositions are about ambiguities of form and void, foreground and background and surface and deep space.

My roots lie in tonalism, color field painting and minimalism. However, my work contains an ever-present awareness of the dramatic use of light of the post-renaissance chiaroscurists. It combines a classical awareness of structure with a romantic use of color always in combination with a unique sense of ambiguity.

My work continues in its evolution of style the search for an abstract means of probing the ambiguities of physical and spiritual experience of light, and its power to foster a more intense life of the spirit through profound emotional experience of form, color and composition.”

– Douglass Freed

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2013   Aberson Exhibits, Doug Freed – Tulsa, OK
2013   Etra Fine Art, Doug Freed, Large Paintings – Miami, FL
2012   Mary Martin Fine Art, Douglass Freed, Paintings – Charleston, SC
2011   Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Douglass Freed, Paintings, 1973-2010 – Sedalia, MO
2011   Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Light Sequent – Kansas City, MO
2009   Anne Loucks Gallery, Douglass Freed, May 22 – July 20 – Chicago, Illinois
2009   Dean Day Gallery, June 6 – July 18 – Houston, Texas
2009   Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Light, Color, Atmosphere, April 3 – May 16 – Kansas City, Missouri
2008   Anne Loucks Gallery, Douglass Freed, September 26 – November 20 – Glencoe (Chicago), Illinois
2007   Etra Fine Art, Large Canvases, February 1 – March 4 – Miami, Florida
2007   Micaela Gallery, Dreamscapes, November 2 – December 2 – San Francisco, California
2006   Anne Loucks Gallery, Douglass Freed, November 3 – December 1 – Glencoe (Chicago), Illinois
2006   Mary Martin Fine Art, Dreamscapes, May 25 – July 2 – Charleston, South Carolina
2005   Etra Fine Art, Revisited Landscape, March 1 – April 17 – Miami, Florida
2005   Lanoue Fine Art, Douglass Freed, May 1 – June 15 – Boston, Massachusetts
2005   Mary Martin Fine Art, Spoletto Arts Festival, May 21 – June 26 – Charleston, South Carolina
2005   Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Time Passages, January 14-March 12 – Kansas City, Missouri
2004   Olsen-Larsen Galleries, Newwork, September 10 – October 9 – West Des Moines, Iowa
2004   Patrona Frau/Etra Fine Arts, Basil Miami, December 1-31 – Miami, Florida
2003   R. Duane Reed Gallery, Douglass Freed Introduction, September 19 – October 18 – St. Louis, Missouri
2003   Steinway Gallery, Douglass Freed, September 18 – October 23 – Chapel Hill, North Carolina
2003   Walnut Street Gallery, Works on Canvas and Paper, May 2 – June 28 – Springfield, Missouri
2002   Northwest Missouri State University, Douglass Freed, October 14 – November 8 – Maryville, Missouri
2002   Vorpal Gallery, Douglass Freed, June 1 – August 31 – San Francisco, California
2000-01   Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, Douglass Freed, December 8 – January 14 – St. Louis, Missouri
2000   Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Monumental Landscapes, October 6 – November 11 – Kansas City, Missouri
2000   Wichita Center for the Arts, Douglass Freed Monumental Landscapes, June 30 – Aug 31 – Wichita, Kansas
1999   M.A. Doran Gallery, Douglass Freed, New Paintings, August 12 – September 11 – Tulsa, Oklahoma
1999   Steinway Gallery, Douglass Freed, Oils on Paper, October 30 – December 10 – Chapel Hill, North Carolina
1998   Steinway Gallery, Landscapes, January 6 – February 21 – Chapel Hill, North Carolina
1997   Leedy Voulkos Gallery, Sky/Land/Water, October 10 – November 15, 1997 – Kansas City, Missouri
1997   Vorpal Gallery, Steel Wall Structures, February 28 – March 28 – New York City, New York
1997   Vorpal Gallery, Oil on Canvas Structures, San Francisco, California – March 8 – April 5
1997   Walnut Street Gallery, Horizons and Vistas, April 11 – May 31 – Springfield, Missouri
1996-97   Goddard Gallery, Stauffacher Center for the Fine Arts, Monumental Structures and Landscapes, November 28 – January 24 – Sedalia, Missouri
1996   Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, Oil Paintings, April 12 – May 12 – St. Louis, Missouri
1995   Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, New Steel Sculptures, January 20 – February 26 – St. Louis, Missouri