Anna Freeman Bentley
MAKE BELIEVE CATALOGUE
Anna Freeman Bentley – make believe
This, the third publication documenting the works of East London-based artist Anna Freeman Bentley, is devoted to the ‘make believe’ paintings – a substantial body of work produced in 2021–22 exploring the relationship between painting and cinema. Inspired by sets from The Colour Room (2021), a biopic of the early career of celebrated British ceramicist Clarice Cliff (1899–1972), the publication features an essay by critic and writer Thomas Marks, and an in-conversation with co-producer of The Colour Room, Georgie Paget. It accompanies an exhibition presented across two sites: The Armory Show 2022, New York, and Frestonian Gallery, London.
make believe SOLO EXHIBITION FRESTONIAN GALLERY
Frestonian Gallery is delighted to present at our London gallery the second part of Anna Freeman Bentley’s extraordinary new body of work, following her solo presentation at the 2022 edition of The Armory Show, New York. The series – entitled ‘make believe’ is derived from an informal artist’s residency at Sky Studios during the latter stages of lockdown in 2021. The artist chose to seek out the set of a film as the site to investigate ideas of reality and fiction, invisible boundaries and spaces of artifice.
Freeman Bentley’s work is characterised by a tension between her strictly disclipined process, and her lyrically loose and joyous painting style. Her choice of subject matter has been a closely observed exercise in focus and control – choosing to paint interiors exclusively, and at all points leaving those interiors free of overt human presence, instead allowing the implied markers of presence – a scattering of objects; an open door; a window ajar – to ‘do the work’.
Collected and Composed
15th January - 22nd February 2020
Frestonian Gallery, 2 Olaf Street, London W11 4BE
Order and chaos, deliberation and spontaneity: these contrasting concepts form both the sense and the subject of the latest solo exhibition of paintings by Anna Freeman Bentley. The literal subjects are both purposeful constructions of a sort – the carefully staged tableaux of museum ‘interiors’ (intended to demonstrate certain design styles to the interested observer), and the ramshackle stalls of flea markets in London, Paris and Berlin.
The choice of these subjects makes perfect sense when considering Freeman Bentley’s practice, going back to her days on the painting course at the Royal College of Art, the constructed and, crucially, depopulated landscape has long been her area of artistic investigation. In the case of the museum interior ‘exhibits’ the lack of human presence is an existing prerequisite: these are zones of pure contemplation, cordoned off, literally, from any living interaction. The flea market scenes have, by contrast, been purposefully ‘emptied out’ of human figures by Freeman Bentley as she reconstructs the imagery from a combination of memory and photography.
In both instances this deliberate action lends a certain elevating quality to the resulting works. The museum scenes remain empty, but are cropped in a sympathetic way so as to conceal their fabricated and false nature. Meanwhile the disorder of the markets is allowed to settle into more stately compositions: the drapes of the polythene awnings and gently overflowing trays of wares achieving the air of considered still-lifes once the jostling crowds of market-goers are removed. In so doing Freeman Bentley achieves a unification of sensibilities between these two very different subjects – works that are at once faithful to and manipulative of reality.
Second Home
9th November - 28th December 2019
DENK Gallery, Los Angeles
(Los Angeles, CA) - DENK GALLERY is pleased to present Second Home; the gallery's first solo exhibition of works by London-based artist Anna Freeman Bentley. For this exhibition Freeman Bentley presents a series of paintings that explore the spaces of private members clubs and their visual identities.
Members clubs can be perceived as a symbol of wealth and exclusivity to outsiders, yet to insiders the club represents a home away from home. The way that these places are decorated and filled with ornaments speaks of personal history, but the commodity of membership is de-personalising.
21ST CENTURY WOMEN
4th October - 3rd November 2018
Helen Beard, Anna Freeman Bentley, Zoe Buckman, Charlotte Colbert, Laura Ford, Eloise Fornieles, Maggi Hambling, Chantal Joffe, Kate MccGwire, Polly Morgan, Annie Morris, Suzy Murphy, Ishbel Myerscough, Vicken Parsons, Boo Saville, Jenny Saville, Sue Webster, Victoria Wright, Michaela Yearwood-Dan
Unit Gallery, 3 Hannover Square, London
Anomie Anna Freeman Bentley
Exclusive
Exclusive – Paintings of Private Members Clubs
Foreword by:
Roberta Ahmanson
Introduction by:
John Silvis
Essay by:
Jane Neal
64pp + 4pp covers
Hardback, 315 x 250 mm (p)
c. 40 colour images
ISBN: 978-1-910221-15-0
RRP: £30 / €35 / $40
UK Release: 14 June 2018
Designed by Reynolds Wulf Inc., Oregon
Edited by Ann Hirou
Printed and bound in the USA
Distributed by Casemate Art
Co-published by Pinatubo Press, Inc., and Anomie
In this publication, Anna Freeman Bentley presents a series of new paintings and works on paper documenting her journey into the exclusive realm of private members clubs. Having started out in London, her research took her to California, and in particular to some of the most desirable clubs of Los Angeles, where through friends, professional networks and a number of courteous emails, doors were temporarily opened to her. In places where photography is often strictly forbidden, Freeman Bentley was authorized to document some of the many luxurious lounges, well-stocked bars and high-end restaurants that are second homes to the members who pay considerable fees to use them. Freeman Bentley uses the photographs she takes of these spaces out of hours as the starting point for
unpeopled drawings, collages and painted sketches, transforming her studies into complex paintings that hover between reality and invention.
Freeman Bentley is known for her paintings of architecture and interiors, not only exploring the physical attributes of the built environment, but also raising questions about how and why they are used, and how this is reflected in the ambiance and dynamics of a given space. At a time of heightene awareness of wealth inequality, through her painterly works Freeman Bentley gives us a glimpse inside the spaces of the social milieu of the financially successful, the movers and shakers, the leaders and trend setters, inviting us to respond as viewers as we choose. For some, it may be a matter of curiosity or of desire and aspiration; for others the very idea of members clubs might be elitist. Yet for others it might be an occasional treat, or simply the norm. With her characteristic combination of matter-of-fact observation, critical reflection and atmospheric perception, Freeman Bentley presents us with a body of work that is as enigmatic as it is intriguing, asking us not only about issues of individuality and communality, private and public life, exclusivity and inclusivity, but also about how we each fit into such dialectics, and what this says about our inner and outer lives. Exclusive has been co-published by Pinatubo Press, Inc., and Anomie Publishing, and released to coincide with an exhibition of the same name at the Ahmanson Gallery, Irvine, California, in spring 2018. This hardback publication showcases images of approximately twenty paintings and as many works on paper, alongside a foreword from collector and patron Roberta Ahmanson, an introduction by the exhibition curator John Silvis, and a specially commissioned essay from critic Jane Neal.
Anna Freeman Bentley (b.1982) is an artist based in London. She studied painting at Chelsea College of Art and Design before graduating with an MA from the Royal College of Art in 2010. She has had solo exhibitions at venues including Wolfson College, Oxford (2017), Husk Project Space, London (2015), Workshop Gallery, Venice (2012), and Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin (2007).
Anomie Publishing | [email protected] | www.anomie-publishing.com
London Now
10th July - 8th September 2017
Anna Freeman Bentley, Benjamin Brett, Sarah Lederman
Space K, Gwacheon, South Korea
Der kühle Glanz der Sehnsucht gegen den flüchtigen Moment der Zeit
23rd June - 5th August 2017
Tony Cragg, Anna Freeman Bentley, Michelle Jezierski and Alfons Pressnitz
Curated by Dr. Barbara Jenner
68projects, Fasanenstrasse 68, 10719 Berlin
Pink, bordering on bright neon, emerges from the canvas with radiant luminosity, part of a grid that is barely contained by the limits of the pictorial space. Based on photos, Michelle Jezierski’s paintings create a new image of landscape: overlapping structures, fragments of diverse origin, combined with lines, grids and planes that complement, penetrate and dissolve each other. Her colours of choice, shifting between saturated, subdued and bright hues of neon, are a reference to the perception of our time- in a technicized world, earthy colours lose their relevance. Between abstraction and figurative landscape painting, there emerges the illusion of a space that extends beyond the canvas, where perspectives no longer have a focal point, creating disruptions, intersections and, finally, new landscapes. Perception changes, realities overlap, the image is manipulated. In contrast to the extended space of Jezierki’s works, there is Anna Freeman Bentley’s dense inner space. The most diverse interiors, densely hung walls and reflections of light and objects create a spatial density that ominously narrows and centres the visual field. The generous brushwork provides the figurative with an abstract dimension, further accentuated by the choice of colours- sombre, earthy hues, refracted by an artificial-seeming spectrum of primary colours. The works are suffused with atmospheric depths and complex reflections. Alfons Pressnitz confronts the idyll of landscape with its counterpart, consciously settling a score with the romantic notion of landscape. His partly large-scale paintings emphasize the gaze into the distance, albeit disrupted by several elements. The paper cuts contain an abstract element, the forms become shadows of their former selves and come together in a conglomerate of surfaces that will only ever allow for a fragmented view. The works of Tony Cragg add a sculptural component to the exhibition. Countless organic units merge into one big whole. Based on drawings, the visual vocabulary of the sculptures is dominated by natural forms. Exploring the relation between art and nature, the sculptor is particularly interested in the transformation of things, the different characteristics of matter that shape his specific language. Nature and landscapes are turned into symbols, places of longing, where humans can only ever be absent. Longing shimmers in cold colours, the moment remains fleeting.
Landing
29th September - 15th October 2016
Hannah Brown, Freya Douglas-Morris, Anna Freeman Bentley
Curated by Kristian Day in collaboration with Herrick Gallery
93 Picadilly, W1J 7NQ. Open Tues - Sat 11-6pm Tube: Green Park
Variously depicting architecture, landscape and the figure, the work of each artist is notable for its highly personal use of pictorial space and engagement with materials. The show’s title – Landing – alludes to a state between the real and the imagined, a liminal space with regard to representing the visible world found in the work of each of the three artists. Each situates their work as existing in an in-between zone, one foot perhaps grounded in observation and experience, the other exploring memory, imagination, transition, waiting, mirroring, knowing and not knowing. Each explores the illusory nature of image-making, conjoining observation with narratives of memory and imagination, in work that often appears imbued by both presence and absence. Landing also represents the end of a journey undertaken in each artists practice, culminating in the work shown.
Interior Realities
August 2016
Fused Magazine. Studio visit text by Matt Price.
It’s a seemingly rare sunny summer’s morning when I go to visit Anna Freeman Bentley’s studio in Hackney Wick, London. And she’s on top form, brimming with energy as she leads me at pace through the streets of this still-gentrifying part of East London. It looks like the set of a fashion shoot round here – edgy industrial estates and extensive graffiti, with hardly a car or person out on the streets, but like much of Hackney, it’s looking so much smarter and brighter than it did just a decade ago, the Olympic Park looming in the distance. It’s no surprise to find a block of artist studios in this kind of location – so often you find them outside the desirable residential, commercial and retail districts, until, that is, they eventually become desirable and the gentrification process gains the upper hand. read more
Sampler
25th August - 27th August 2016
An exhibition of 27 painters curated by Kristian Day at Arcade Fine Arts.
87 Lever Street, London ED1V 3RA.
YOUR JEWISH MUSEUM: JOURNEYS
26th May - 4th September 2015
Open Saturday – Thursday: 10am – 5pm, Friday: 10am – 2pm
Jewish Museum London, Raymond Burton House, 129 – 131 Albert Street, London NW1 7NB
Jewish Museum London’s second crowd-sourced exhibition will feature personal mementoes, historic artefacts and fine art, all on the theme of journeys.
Artists and members of the public have lent artworks and objects alongside moving testimonies of the journeys undertaken – physical, spiritual and emotional.
A selection of over 25 objects will be displayed in the Jewish Museum’s Welcome Gallery curated alongside treasures from its Judaica collection, in this project in partnership with the Cultural Institute at King’s College London.
Curated by Joanne Rosenthal and Dr Aaron Rosen.
DADU : CONVERSATIONS GALLERY ELL
13th June 2015
DADU pop up gallery, East Nashville, Tennessee, USA
A group exhibition brought out of the recent conversations series on galleryELL.com: SPACE&time / HOME / exterior—interior
Artists: Maria Christoforatou, Anna Freeman Bentley, Kariann Fuqua, Jodi Hays, Nancy Hubbard, Kei Imai, Kirsten Nash, Jaimini Patel, John Ros
Detached Accessory Dwelling Unit (DADU), city and codes-given name for tiny homes on one’s property, is anything but that. DADU houses friends, art work and a studio. DADU, Jodi Hays’ studio and workshop (in the alley of 12th between Forrest and Gartland) will host its first pop-up of a series: conversations, a collaboration between Director/Artist Jodi Hays (East Nashville) and Curator/Artist John Ros (galleryELL, NYC/London). Digital catalogue available from June 2015.
EAST LONDON PAINTING PRIZE 2015
30th April - 17th May 2015
Open daily 12noon – 6pm
The Rum Factory, Pennington Street Warehouse, London Dock, E1W 2BD
23 artists who live or work in east London have been shortlisted for the 2015 East London Painting Prize. Their work goes on show in a unique exhibition at The Rum Factory, Pennington Street Warehouse, London Dock in Wapping in May 2015.
The East London Painting Prize, now in its second year, celebrates the incredible talent and diversity of artists living and working in the boroughs of east London. The prize has been created by The Legacy List (shortly to become the Foundation for FutureLondon) and Bow Arts Trust, with kind support from the Goldhill Family and the Zabludowicz Collection.
The shortlist have been selected by an influential panel including artist and painter Phoebe Unwin; editor of Art Review, Oliver Basciano; Director of the Zabludowicz Collection Elizabeth Neilson and founder of Launchpad, Sarah Elson. The eventual winner will be selected from the artists exhibited at the Rum Factory on Wednesday 13 May, winning a £10,000 cash prize and a solo exhibition in the Nunnery Gallery, Bow later in the year.
The shortlisted artists are:
Hackney: Michael Ajerman, Steven Allan, David Caines, Anna Freeman Bentley, Andrew Hladky, Kate Lyddon, Cathy Lomax, Lee Maelzer, Judith Rooze, Mimei Thompson.
Newham: Peter Donaldson, Marie Jacotey-Voyatzis.
Redbridge: Luke Rudolf
Tower Hamlets: Hannah Brown, Cyrus Shroff, Caroline Walker, Willem Weismann, Emily Wolfe, Vivien Zhang.
Waltham Forest: Benjamin Doherty, Katrin Maeurich, David Ben White, Josephine Wood.
Oliver Basciano, Editor of Art Review, explained the panel’s selection criteria: “The judges were able to put together an incredibly strong shortlist from a happily huge number of entries. The 23 artists whom made the cut are not just highly skilled technicians (and let's in no way seek to minimalise the importance of that) but also create works that are active, affective and alive; each in their own way spurring forth with an exacting, indelible energy, that stopped us in our tracks."
Lizzie Neilson, Director of Zabludowicz Collection said: “Judging was a tough, but incredibly rewarding process. Every one of the 23 shortlisted paintings is by an accomplished artist. We had to be hard-nosed to get to this succinct group but I think there is a strength is showing the best of the best. As the Director of an active contemporary art collection seeing these excellent paintings in the flesh was a fantastic experience and left me invigorated as the breadth of painting practice in the east end of London is just staggering.”
Claire Gevaux, Creative Director of The Legacy List, said: “The boroughs surrounding Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park are home to Europe’s largest concentration of artists and arts organisations. Through the East London Painting Prize, we set out to nurture this talent and help some of these outstanding artists to make their mark on the capital’s contemporary art scene. We’d like to congratulate each of the shortlisted artists, their work has impressed and inspired.”
Rosamond Murdoch, Director Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts said: “I am thrilled at the quality and quantity of entries this year, east London is a hotbed of talent and the painters shortlisted for this year’s prize are a distillation of that quality.”
Michael Goldhill, representative of the Goldhill family, said: “We are delighted to have helped create this painting prize in my late father's name for emerging artists, living and working in the East End of London. We hope it will continue to grow in stature within the art community. Once again the remarkable talent has enabled us to present a powerful show to be held on the 13th May, when I shall announce the winner."
LONDON 2.0 GALERIE BIESENBACH COLOGNE
17th April - 16th May 2015
In collaboration with Charlotte Hopkins Hall (*1979, lives and works in London) and following cities such as Athens, Berlin, Cologne and Paris, with London 2.0 we continue our cyclic group exhibition series, which provides a loosely ordered insight into current trends and developments regarding different art metropolises.
Rather than looking for similarity within the artists’ works, we have chosen to focus on the diversity that makes up the artistic richness of these cultural hubs. Working in different fields and media, what links these artists is the fact that they live and work in the same city. Our second London show features works by Jane Bustin, Wayne Clough, Anna Freeman Bentley, Lewis Hammond, Phil Miller and Clare Price.
Opening Hours Tue–Fri 12–7pm, Sat 12–6pm and by appointment.
Settlement
26th February - 25th March 2015
Husk gallery is pleased to present Settlement, an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by the London-based artist, Anna Freeman Bentley.
Freeman Bentley’s practice explores the urban environment, architecture and interiors that invite emotive, psychological, and semiotic readings of space. Employing a decadent and fleshy painterly language, with energetic yet intricate brushwork, the re-imagined environments in her paintings push the bounds of architectural possibility.
The works in Settlement depict interiors that embody a sense of change or renewal. Through these disjointed views of bars, cafes and vintage shops, a self-conscious visual language of mobility begins to surface. At first the depicted spaces appear ungrounded, blurring between a figurative and an abstract painterly language. The works invite us to consider something of the contemporary urban experience and what it means to ground oneself in an ever changing, ever growing city. In these spaces, history is not consequential or accidental, but stylised, poised and framed.
The newest work in this exhibition, “Give Ground”, marks something of a departure in the artist’s process which was previously characterised by darker colours on a white ground, executed with great speed. Here, bright coloured grounds bring luminosity and depth to the final painting. This large scale work is comprised of four panels where each section was rendered independently. Due to the image being built up gradually over a number of weeks a sense of spatial uncertainty is invoked.
This exhibition coincides with the recent publication of the artist’s first monograph. Published by Anomie Publishing, “Mobility and Grandeur”was released on 12 February and features newly commissioned essays by Michele Robecchi, Marina Cashdan and Ben Quash. It will be available for sale during the exhibition at a special price of £15.
Anna Freeman Bentley studied at Chelsea College of Art (BA Fine Art 2004) and the Royal College of Art (MA Painting 2010). She has had solo exhibitions in Berlin, Venice and California, residencies in London with the Florence Trust and with the Michelin-starred restaurant Pied a Terre, and participated in group exhibitions including the Prague Biennale 2011, the Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2009 and the inaugural East London Painting Prize 2014.
Anomie Anna Freeman Bentley
Mobility and Grandeur
New Monograph on the rising British painter
Texts by:
Michele Robecchi
Marina Cashdan
Ben Quash
98pp + 4pp covers
Hardback, 220 x 190 mm (p)
c. 75 colour
ISBN: 978-1-910221-03-7
Released 12 Feb 2015 (UK) 26 Mar (USA)
Edited by Matt Price
Designed by Joe Gilmore / Qubik
Printed by Pressision, Leeds
Published by Anomie Publishing, UK
Distributed by Casemate LLC and Casemate UK
Anna Freeman Bentley (b. Freeman, 1982) is a painter based in London. Her practice explores the built environment, architecture and interiors, inviting emotive, psychological and semiotic readings of space. With an intense, regularly dark palette and energetic yet often intricate brushwork, her paintings depict all manner of places derelict factories and warehouses, baroque buildings, shops, cafes, and modern industrial and corporate architecture. With a particular focus on the relationships between the design of architecture, its function and use, how these uses change over time, and how streets, areas, communities and cities decline, regenerate and gentrify, Freeman Bentley’s practice documents the changing vocabulary of architecture and captures some of the complex dynamics, atmospheres, politics and states of mind that these places engender.
This, the artist’s first monograph, features over forty paintings spanning her career to date, offering a journey through the built environment that takes the viewer into realms as diverse as psychogeography and heterotopias, romanticism and modernism. From the needs and desires of individuals to those of the different communities that make up urban life in cities and towns today, her paintings open up questions about displacement and replacement, decay and rebirth, change and transformation, public and private space, social and economic mobility, aspiration and desire, buildings and people. Seeking to go beyond the visible and tangible and to explore ideas of faith and the sacred within space, Freeman Bentley’s work looks through the fabric of our physical environment to ask about what lies behind, into the dialogue between matter and spirit.
The publication features newly commissioned texts by London-based curator and writer Michele Robecchi, New York-based art writer and editor Marina Cashdan, and Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity and the Arts at King’s College London. Edited by Matt Price and designed by Joe Gilmore / Qubik, this hardback monograph presents the arresting and engaging work of one of the UK’s most promising emerging painters.
Freeman Bentley studied painting at Chelsea College of Art and Design before graduating with an MA from the Royal College of Art in 2010. She has had solo exhibitions in Berlin, Venice and California, residencies in London with the Florence Trust and with Pied àTerre Michelin-starred restaurant, and participated in group exhibitions including Bloomberg New Contemporaries, 2009, the Prague Biennale 5, 2011, and the inaugural East London Painting Prize, 2014.
Anomie Publishing | [email protected] | www.anomie-publishing.com
East London Painting Prize
20th May - 1st June 2014
A shortlist of 43 artists has been announced for the first annual East London Painting Prize. The winner, to be announced later in the month, will receive a £10,000 prize plus a solo exhibition at east London gallery The Nunnery.
Created by The Legacy List, the charity of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, with the Goldhill Family and Bow Arts, the new award is open to painters based in the east London boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Barking, and Dagenham and Redbridge. It honours the life and work of East End property developer, arts philanthropist and amateur painter Jack Goldhill, and aims to support both established and emerging artists in the area.
An exhibition of works by the shortlisted artists opens on 20 May in a warehouse in Sugar House Lane, part of the Strand East regeneration project south of the Olympic Park. The winner will be announced at a prize-giving night on Tuesday 27 May.
The shortlisting panel for the prize is comprised of: Sarah Elson (Contemporary Art Society and Bow Arts Board); Matt Price (art critic and curator); Varda Caivano (artist); Michael Goldhill (representative of the Goldhill Family); and Maitreyi Maheshwari (acting director of the Zabludowicz Collection).
The full list of shortlisted artists for the first annual East London Painting Prize is:
Helen Alveranga, Cornelia Baltes, Aglae Bassens, Mark Beldan, Charlie Billingham,Isha Bohling, Gabriella Boyd, Hannah Brown, Lawrence Corby, Ben Cove, Adam Dix, Freya Douglas-Morris, Sam Douglas, Sarah Douglas, Nathan Eastwood, Kath Ellis, Tom Ellis, Anna Freeman Bentley, Grant Foster, Simon Foxall, Mathis Gasser, Lewis Hammond, Anna Ilsey, Ben Jamie, Keelertomero, Dominic Kennedy, Cathy Lomax, Katrin Maeurich, Derek Marks, Soren Mayes, Eleanor Moreton, Ben Nathan, Cian O’Neill, Amie Parrott, Alice Peillon, Martine Poppe, Jasmin Reif, Greg Rook, Judith Rooze, Lucia Vera, Emily Wolfe, Ben Walker, Ross Walker.
The East London Painting Prize, 20 May - 8 June 2014, Strand East, London.bowarts.org
Double Blind, 4 Windmill Street
23rd January - 5th March 2014
with Douglas Allsop, Adam Bainbridge, Ross Chisholm, Joe Clark and Anna M. R. Freeman Curated by Thomas Cuckle
The mirror itself is not subject to duration, because it is an ongoing abstraction that is always available and timeless. The reflections, on the other hand, are fleeting instances that evade measure.
Robert Smithson, 'Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan', Artforum, 1969
In Andrei Tarkovsky's 'The Mirror' (1975) a mirror is a metonym for memory; but those memories come alive, the mirror-image is no longer secondary to reality and starts to become confused with real things. In 'Double-Blind' the mirror-image takes on as great a weight as its double, confounding, interrupting and proposing new realities.
In Anna M. R. Freeman's paintings the spatial coordinates of domestic interiors are fragmented by compositional devices, including the recurrent presence of mirrored surfaces. What results is a mirror-blindness – the distinctions between reality and its double are erased. The mirror-image, otherwise composed of light, is replaced by something solid, the mirror becomes a doorway, a screen, a barrier. Just as in Tarkovsky's film, the spaces depicted are chosen in reference to layers of meaning not inherent to these places.
Robert Smithson, in his essay 'Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan' (1969), references the transcendent idea of the mirror as a portal for travel. The mirror's reflections are described as being outside of time; both infinite and fleeting. Adam Bainbridge's painstaking pencil on paper works share this quality of fragments not subject to duration. In this imagined world, seen through a glass darkly, life flourishes out of inanimate objects. The fleeting instances pictured give a sense of a reality which is a fantastical double of mundane suburban existence.
As Smithson's 1969 series of 'Mirror Displacements' used mirrors to combine earth and sky in one image, Joe Clark's 'Asset Management' series of video and digital print works reflects on an invisible virtual world – digitally imposed spherical photography – used in the production of automobile advertising images and special effects workflows in film. In the place of a product, Clark posits arbitrary mirror fragments, themselves free of content, but reflecting the photographic assets he has gathered in his travels, for this instance in Morocco.
When the mirror-image holds the attention, something is hidden in its shadow. Douglas Allsop's 'Blind Screens' are made from video tape stretched across a room to produce a visual barrier, shimmering and reflecting the viewer's gaze. This new wall which bisects the gallery space creates a state of double-blindness, as vision from one side or the other is interrupted. But the sight which is lost is replaced with a kind of double-vision as the glossy stripes reflect back the room behind the viewer. Allsop's 'Reflective Editors' – high-gloss sheets of acrylic, machine routed with duplicating patterns – operate similarly to produce redacted replications of the surrounding environment.
The artist's use of the mirror as a formal device has a long history: a means to positioning the viewer within the work; demonstrating technical skill; or as a tool for understanding the principles of perspective. Out of a lineage of portrait painting Ross Chisholm reinterprets the theme through the lens of contemporary technological reproduction. Like an analogue copy, the double of 'cat reverb' (2010) suffers a degeneration in resolution and fidelity. The twice mirrored panels of 'last dance' (2011) become increasingly sharp, but their acid hues suggest a chemical process, or even the faux-authentic filters of Instagram.
Open Wed - Fri 1-5pm. Saturday by appointment.
4 Windmill Street, London W1T 2HZ
020 3397 3149
[email protected]
www.4windmillstreet.com
Douglas Allsop
Born 1943, exhibitions include: Bartha Contemporary, London, 2014 (forthcoming);
Stiftung für konkrete Kunst, Reutlingen (DE), 2011; Kunstverein Speyer (DE), 2010; Kettles Yard, Cambridge, 2009; Letherby Gallery, London, 2009; Städtische Galerie, Villa Zanders Bergisch Gladbach (DE), 2008; Galerie Bernd A. Lausberg, Düsseldorf (DE), 2008; Gesellschaft für Kunst Und Gestaltung, eV. Bonn (DE), 2008; Kunstverein Eislingen (DE), 2007; Städtisches Museum, Niederrheinischer Kunstverein, Wesel (DE), 2007.
Adam Bainbridge
Born 1982, exhibitions include: Royal College of Art, London, 2012; Madder 139, London, 2011; Jerwood Space, London, 2011; 20 Hoxton Square, London, 2010; Royal College of Art, 2010; Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London, 2010; Cornerhouse, Manchester and A Foundation, London, 2009; Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin (DE), 2009.
Ross Chisholm
Born 1977, exhibitions include: BALTIC, Gateshead, 2014 (forthcoming); Green Art Gallery, Dubai, 2014 (forthcoming); Jancou Geneva (CH), 2012; Ibid, London, 2012; Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York (US), 2011; Grieder Contemporary, Berlin (DE), 2010; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 2010; Zabludowicz Collection / Projectspace 176, London, 2010; The Olbricht Collection, Berlin (DE), 2010; Sean Kelly Gallery, New York (US), 2010; Galerie Akinci, Amsterdam (NL), 2009; Jerwood Space, London, 2008; Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY (US), 2007; Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, CA (US), 2007.
Joe Clark
Born 1982, exhibitions include: Workplace Gallery, Gateshead, 2013; XPO Gallery, Paris (FR), 2012; Marrakech Biennale 4, Marrakech (MA), 2012; A Foundation: Liverpool Biennial and ICA, London, 2010; Slade School of Fine Art, London, 2010; Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Wales, 2010; The Nunnery, Bow Arts Trust, London, 2009; Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield, 2009; Fishmarket, Northampton, 2008; Union Gallery, London, 2008; National Glass Centre, Sunderland, 2006; Glasgow International, 2006.
Anna M. R. Freeman
Born 1982, exhibitions include: Durham University and Newcastle Biscuit Gallery, 2013; Pied à Terre, London, 2012; Workshop, Venice (IT), 2012; MAC (Midlands Art Centre), Birmingham, 2011; Prague Biennale 5 (CZ), 2011; The Florence Trust, London, 2011; Asylum Arts, London, 2011; Royal College of Art, London, 2010; Blyth Gallery, London, 2010; Cornerhouse, Manchester and A Foundation, London, 2009; Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin (DE), 2009.
Thomas Cuckle
Born 1985, curated exhibitions at Kunstraum, London include: An Opal World: with Rossella Biscotti, Priscila Fernandes, Jan Peter Hammer and Alberto De Michele, 2013; Late Nights & Early Mornings: with Willem Besselink, Jacob Dahlgren, Edward Clydesdale Thomson and Florian & Michael Quistrebert, 2013; Miles Thurlow: Variable Foot, 2013; Definitional Disruptions: with Nel Aerts, Filip Gilissen and Hedwig Houben, 2012; Jason Coburn: x ways to improve your y, 2012. Other exhibitions include: Wunderkammer, Nunnery Gallery, 2011; and John Smith | Solo Show, Royal College of Art, London, 2010.
Double Vision
10th August 2013
Ale Groen and Anna M.R. Freeman, Contemporary Canadian and British Artwork from the Collection of Howard and Roberta Ahmanson
Fieldstead Gallery, Irvine, California.
Shadow and Substance
2nd May - 16th May 2013
Shadow and Substance press release
Anna M. R. Freeman and Alastair John Gordon
St Chad’s College, Durham University 9 - 11 April 2013
The Holy Biscuit Gallery, Newcastle 2 - 16 May 2013
Durham University and The Holy Biscuit Gallery are delighted to present a two person touring exhibition by London-based artists Anna M. R. Freeman and Alastair John Gordon.
The title for this exhibition derives from a biblical text from the book of Colossians which refers to our present experience as existing in the shadow of the physical reality of the future. This sets up an idea that the materiality of the future, is something to long for in the present. This converse reading of reality brings in to focus the significance of material culture in religion. Architecture of sacred places and the use of objects that we instill with meaning have featured in the everyday practice of religion throughout history. This exhibition examines the concept of a spiritual longing for a future that casts a shadow into contemporary sacred space.
This exhibition focuses on small paintings reflecting on an intimate relationship, both between the artist and their medium, the viewer and the artwork and the intimacy of a personal relationship to sacred space. The works are exhibited in direct dialogue with one another; the iconographic object and the space in which it resides. Freeman’s painting process renders lush, rich marks executed in one sitting while Gordon’s gestural marks have been studied and reproduced through careful reconstruction. There is a painterly materiality to both artists work which sets up interesting visual relationships between specific works but also examines the subjective space of painting as the meeting point for the ethereal and the physical.
Alastair John Gordon’s paintings explore certain dynamics between representation and the transcendence of cultural artifacts into sanctified museum pieces. Objects are chosen for their cultural significance, each being an artifact used for personal and religious devotion or relating to local folklore. In his works, certain paradoxical readings emerge. Objects are obscured and revealed, confused and enlightened. Like the nature of representation itself, absurd dichotomies exist that forge alternative narratives and ways of interpreting the historical accuracy of the objects themselves.
Anna M. R. Freeman’s paintings seem intent on blurring a line between abstraction and representation either by the gestural marks of her painting style or through the use of mirrors and reflections in her selected imagery. In her works, space - whether it be architectural, painted, reflected, physical or metaphysical - is under scrutiny. Through the process of painting, non-sacred spaces are redefined and imbued with great psychological and metaphysical significance: creating images with a capacity to provoke thinking about longing, memory and eternity.
Alastair John Gordon was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1978 and graduated with an MA in Fine Art from Wimbledon School of Art in 2012. Previous exhibitions include: The Nunnery Gallery, Bow, London, (solo) 2013; The Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London 2012; Departure, Limehouse, London (solo) 2012; Leith School of Art, Edinburgh (solo) 2012. Gordon is currently Artist in Residence at The Nunnery, Bow and Departure, Limehouse.
Anna M. R. Freeman was born in London, UK in 1982. She graduated from The Royal College of Art with an MA in Painting in 2010. Previous exhibitions include: Pied a Terre, London (solo) 2012, Workshop, Venice (solo) 2012; The Prague Biennale, Prague 2011, The Blyth Gallery, London 2010; the Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Manchester and London 2009. Freeman was awarded the Artist in Restaurant residency at Pied a Terre, London in 2012.
Restoration
2nd October - 8th December 2012
Pied à Terre - Artist in Restaurant 2012
Anna M.R. Freeman
Restoration PRESS RELEASE
This October, restaurant Pied à Terre will present an exhibition of works by artist Anna M.R. Freeman, the result of an eight-month residency. Anna is Pied à Terre’s second Artist in Restaurant, an annual residency scheme for emerging artists. Restoration will comprise more than a dozen paintings carefully installed within a mise-en-scene.
Restoration is the result of a period of in-depth research by the artist in both the public and private zones of the restaurant. The works are influenced by the restaurant’s daily routines, the relationships developed between the staff, the clients and the spaces they inhabit in the restaurant. Anna’s work explores the spaces between objects and people, the contrasts between areas of light and dark framed by architecturally formal surroundings. This new body of work explores the dialogue between performance space and behind the scenes, anticipation and grandeur as well as apparent opposites of miniature and gigantic, detail and whole, function and beauty.
The artist has approached the restaurant as a space in which to intervene, to create a set for exhibiting the work. The main installation turns the central dining area into a subverted theatre-in-the-round, transforming the diners and the food into the performers. The title of the exhibition brings in the many layers of meaning that filter through Anna’s practice.
Of the residency, Founder and Owner of Pied a Terre, David Moore comments: “Building on the success of last years’ residency, we have been delighted to welcome Anna into the restaurant. Pied à Terre has a long history of commitment to the arts, including both established and emerging artists; and we have relished the opportunity to engage further with the art world. We value the fresh perspective on the life of a restaurant that the residency brings. The artist views Pied through a unique lens and opens a new dialogue between the two worlds which everyone at Pied has enjoyed being part of”.
Anna has been spending time at the Michelin starred restaurant, both as a diner and with privileged access behind the scenes. One work created during the residency will become part of Pied à Terre’s collection of contemporary art, which already includes works by Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton and Howard Hodgkin. Anna was selected in December 2011 by the Residency’s committee, from a list of ten artists put forward by the scheme’s nomination panel, and her residency commenced in January 2012. The selection process for Pied à Terre’s 2013 Artist in Restaurant will commence in September 2013.
Anna M. R. Freeman was born in London, UK in 1982, where she now lives and works. She gained a BA (hons) from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (2004) and an MA from The Royal College of Art, London (2010). Her work has appeared in many international exhibitions, including solo shows at Workshop Gallery, Venice, Italy (2012) and Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin, Germany (2007). Group exhibitions include Some Domestic Incidents, MAC, Birmingham; Prague Biennale 5, Expanded Painting from Britain, curated by Matt Price, Prague (2011); The Blyth Gallery, London (2010) and the Bloomberg New Contemporaries touring exhibition, London and Manchester (2009). Anna has taken part in artist residencies at The Florence Trust, London (2010/11) and Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin, Germany (2006-2008) and her work is part of the Saatchi Collection as well as numerous private collections worldwide. www.annamrfreeman.com
Pied à Terre, 34 Charlotte Street, London W1T 2NH
www.pied-a-terre.co.uk
Admission: Free
Opening Hours: Monday to Saturday, 3pm – 6pm
www.artist-in-restaurant.co.uk
The Artist in Restaurant Committee:
Professor John Aiken, Slade Professor, Director of the Slade School of Fine Art and Sculptor
Gill Hedley, Independent curator and consultant
Marie-Lise Sheppard, Grants Adviser for Arts at The Wellcome Trust & Artist in Restaurant scheme manager
Drew de Soto, Founder of Nancy Victor gallery
Calum Sutton, Managing Director Calum Sutton PR
The committee is chaired by Pied à Terre’s founding Director, David Moore
Pied à Terre
Pied à Terre was established in 1991, operating under the guidance of David Moore with Marcus Eaves recently took over as head chef. The restaurant has gained some of the highest awards and accolades possible, earning its first Michelin star in 1993, becoming a two Michelin star restaurant in 1996.
Chamber
11th February - 24th March 2012
workshop is delighted to present the first major solo exhibition by the British artist Anna M. R. Freeman. For this show Freeman has produced a new body of paintings, inspired by the city of Venice and the gallery’s exhibiting space. By investigating the cafes, hotels and workshops scattered around the city, the works explore the transitory nature of Venice.
Notions of lost and found are integral in Freeman’s work. Things that look as though they have little value, spark ideas and images that have greater meaning in a new context. An earlier series of works responding to junk and antique shops considered the hidden potential of otherwise everyday things. Merged histories in the junk shop are established, as objects are placed out of their intended context forming a sense of displacement, emphasising the transitory nature of the space as these items wait to be housed elsewhere.
For this exhibition these ideas have progressed into looking at workshops where such objects are made; as well as at hotels and cafes, where furnishings and opulent details find a home. In hotels and cafes, each carved ornament and crystal chandelier is just where it should be and yet here, it is the inhabitant that is passing through. As Venice bustles with visitors enchanted by the charm of the city, when their visit is over, the city is discarded and abandoned. Very few people make Venice their home, a fact accentuated by the mass of visiting spaces, hotels, hostels and bookable apartments.
Freeman’s works are executed under a self given time pressure. Due to the thinness of the paint and its need not to dry, each painting is completed on the same day that it was begun. The materiality of the paint plays a crucial role as the artist uses washes, fluid brushstrokes and intuitive reactions to form a complete image. Intrigued by the blurring boundary between abstraction and figuration, each painting involves an impulsive decision making process in deciphering at what point to stop, to hold back and to allow the image to maintain control.
These fluid marks and washes of colour reflect the fluidity of Venice and its watery surroundings. Throughout the paintings of hotel lobbies, cafes and frame shops, a fascination with mirrors and reflections is clear. Just as, throughout Venice, light bounces off the canals into the interiors of the city, so throughout these transitory visitor spaces, objects and light are reflected around the room. And yet in the paintings, often the physical space is rendered in exactly the same fluid and painterly way as the reflections and so we are left unsure as to what is there and what is simply reflected, what is real and what is not.
Anna M. R. Freeman was born in London in 1982, where she now lives and works. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Painting in 2010, Freeman has exhibited internationally and was awarded the Florence Trust Studio Residency in London 2010/11. Selected previous exhibitions include Some Domestic Incidents, MAC, Birmingham; Expanded Painting, Prague Biennale 5, Prague (2011); The Blyth Gallery, London (2010) and the Bloomberg New Contemporaries, London and Manchester (2009). Her work is part of the Saatchi Collection, the Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Collection and numerous private collections worldwide.
Anna M. R. Freeman has recently been announced as Artist-in-Restaurant at Pied à Terre in Soho, London. The residency will culminate in a solo exhibition that will open at Pied à Terre in September 2012.
Artist in Restaurant
1st November 2011
Anna M. R. Freeman
Pied à Terre’s Artist in Restaurant 2012 PRESS RELEASE
Anna M. R. Freeman has been announced as Pied à Terre’s second Artist in Restaurant, an annual residency for emerging artists. Anna’s residency will commence in January 2012 and will culminate with an exhibition of her work at Pied à Terre in September 2012. She will spend time at the Michelin starred restaurant, both as a diner and with exclusive behind the scenes access to the kitchens. In order to facilitate the residency, she has been given a sum of £10,000. One work created during the residency will become part of Pied à Terre’s collection of contemporary art, which already includes works by Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton and Howard Hodgkin.
Anna M. R. Freeman’s artistic practice encompasses painting, film and installation and is often inspired by a direct response to particular sites. Her work is primarily concerned with the unseen significance of space, through an examination of the functionality of architecture and its emotive content. She combines images taken of a space, with her memories of it, and is drawn in particular to unlocking the hidden potential of seemingly everyday things, nostalgic objects and organic forms of decoration. Central to her work are contrasting states; namely old and new, function and beauty, light and dark and surface and depth. For her residency she intends to create works that react to the seen and unseen intricacies of Pied à Terre through a series of painting, filmic and site-specific works.
Anna M. R. Freeman (b.1982) lives and works in London. She studied at Camberwell College of Arts, Kunsthochschule Weissensee in Berlin and Chelsea College of Art and Design, before achieving an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art. She has participated in exhibitions across the UK and Europe and has completed a number of residencies, most recently The Florence Trust Artists Residency in 2010/2011. She was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries Exhibition in 2008 and will have a solo exhibition in Venice at Workshop Arte Contemporanea Gallery in February 2012. Her work can be found in the Saatchi Collection and the Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Collection, and in numerous private collections worldwide.
The artist was nominated by Paul Bayley and selected by the Residency’s committee, from a list of ten artists put forward by the scheme’s 2012 nomination panel comprised of five art world figures. Artist in Restaurant 2011 was Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva.
The following artists were nominated for Artist in Restaurant 2012:
Andreas Blank
Ellie Doney
Miriam Elia
Natalia Escobar
Anna M. R. Freeman
Debbie Lawson
Mitra Memarzia
Claire Morgan
Helen Pritchard
Sally Sheinman
The Artist in Restaurant Nomination Committee 2012:
Paul Bayley, Director of the Florence Trust
Patrick Burrows, Director of Art Source
Manick Govinda, Head of artists’ advisory services at ArtsAdmin
Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva, Artist in Restaurant 2011
Oliver Varenne, Curator at Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania
The Artist in Restaurant Committee:
Professor John Aiken, Slade Professor, Director of the Slade School of Fine Art and Sculptor
Gill Hedley, Independent curator and consultant
Marie-Lise Sheppard, Grants Adviser for Arts at The Wellcome Trust & Artist in Restaurant scheme manager
Drew de Soto, Founder of Nancy Victor gallery
Calum Sutton, Managing Director of Sutton PR
The committee is headed up by Pied à Terre’s founding Director, David Moore
Pied à Terre was established in 1991, operating under the guidance of David Moore. The restaurant has gained some of the highest awards and accolades possible, earning its first Michelin star in 1993, becoming a two Michelin star restaurant in 1996. Marcus Eaves was appointed Head Chef in 2011.
Pied à Terre
34 Charlotte Street
London W1T 2NH
www.pied-a-terre.co.uk
www.artist-in-restaurant.co.uk
For further press information and images, please contact
Catherine Sutton, E: [email protected] / T: 07957 143225
Some Domestic Incidents
24th September - 13th November 2011
Some Domestic Incidents, an exhibition of new British painting curated by Matt Price with Charlie Levine. Exhibiting Artists: Caroline Walker, Graham Chorlton, Sally Payen, Oliver Clegg, Phillip Hale, Anna M. R. Freeman and Justin Mortimer. This will form a part of the “Expanded Painting” Section of the fifth edition of the Prague Biennale 2011.
This exhibition will tour to the MAC (Midlands Art Centre) Birmingham straight after Prague, opening in late September and running through until 13th November 2011.
The Florence Trust Summer Exhibition
8th July - 18th July 2011
Sight Insight
24th June - 26th June 2011
Prague Biennale 5
20th May - 11th September 2011
The Florence Trust Open Studios
21st January - 23rd January 2011
Chelsea Arts Club Trust Award Recipients Exhibition
2nd November - 8th November 2010
Chelsea Arts Club, 143 Old Church Street, London SW3 6EB
Awarded the Florence Trust Studio Residency 2010/11
Royal College of Art Degree Show
23rd June - 4th July 2010
