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ROY FREER (NEAC)
Within Sight

Private View Saturday 25th June 2005 noon - 5.00pm
Wine served - All Works for Sale
Exibition Finishes Sunday 17th July 2005

Where enquiries of prices are made on the gallery, the work is subject to availability and the price to change.

 

Dedicated to Alex Jackson, sincere thanks

Standing in the middle of Roy Freer's studio at Sudbury, your very being is seduced by rhythmic touchstones of visual energy. You become part of and surrounded by still life arrangements and copious stacks of paintings! A large canvas on the easel, which is filled with a dramatic painting of table top objects, has a black teapot dominating the top edge of the picture. In another version (propped up against a wall), the pot becomes a white contrasting form. His compositions have meticulous accuracy, using proportioned tracing paper grids placed over his original pencil designs. Knife, fork and door handle shapes (placed with small tantalizing rectangles of orange paper), are orchestrated into a frenzied bagatelle pin-ball wizardry, kicking off sparks and directions across the picture plane!

Roy has been strongly committed to full-time painting for the last 25 years, where cup and pot, table and chair, passage and doorway have become a rich friendly focus. Although investigating the tension between object and space similar to the psychological warfare waging in Morandi's paintings, he embraces his objects with a fluid living experience full of energy and vitality, blurring edges of shapes and allowing a mere minimalist indication to express the whole form.

There is an added freedom of spirit in his work of recent years with thicker slabs of paint and crisp pencil line modifications. Black kettles and dark blue saucepans impacting against bright red backgrounds, fruits and flowers, empathise with Mark Rothko's total drench of colour, grabbing at your soul. The chair used as metaphor for a figure wholly or partly seen, creates a tension interacting with object and table, a device frequently used by Roderic Barrett to indicate the presence or memory of a person (broken or fallen on the floor). Coloured light is deliciously provoked in Roy's paintings with objects as pattern retaining a mysterious power, and like Matisse he is jolted into new ways of seeing, reacting back to the sources of his energy as a painter.

The delivered broad stroke passages of paint by Nicholas de Stael, Richard Diebenkorn, and the vivacious stabs and swirls of Willem de Kooning have all inspired him with their spontaneous response to art. Closer to home he has admired The Kitchen Sink School of Painters including Peter Coker and Ed Middleditch who have each carried on this rich tradition of expressive raw contact with materials and object.

Investigations of light, form and space (with aligned groupings) continue to fascinate and have become significant developments in his work. Representing the object as high chromatic fragmentation, to Roy "a big movement of colour produced by full frontal sunlight is almost as good as a meal!"

Ron Sims 2005

- please enquire for prices -

     
ART SCHOOLS & COLLEGES
     
1953-56
Bournville School of Art
1956-58
Birmingham College of Art
1968
Birmingham University, Art Teachers Centre
     
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP & ANNUAL EXHIBITOR
     
1982-90
The Pastel Society
1987
Royal Institute of Oil Painters
1989
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour
2000
New English Art Club
     
AWARDS
     
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour:
1986
The R.I. Bronze Medal
1958
Minories Colchester Essex, First of three One­ man Shows
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour:
1986,97
The Cornelissen Prize
1992
The Caito Gallery Award
1995
The C. Roberson Prize
1997
The Stanley Grimm Prize
De Montford University:
1997
Higher Certificate Distinction - Life Drawing
     
COMMISSIONS
     
The Alcoa Manufacturing UK LId:
1987
Paintings of Helicopters and Road Transport Vehicles
Shell, UK:
1992
Paintings of Ireland for the Company's calendar
Fidelity Unit Trust, Snooker International:
1985
Painting of the snooker final between Steve Davis and Jimmy White
     
RESIDENCIES & PROJECTS
     
Bedford Education Authority:
1981
Artist in Residence: Beech Hill School
Kentmere House Gallery & The County National Gardens:
1996
Painting Project
1997
Kentmere House Gallery Project: Paintings of the Musicians at The Early English Music Festival
   
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
   
1980
Digswell Arts Centre, Welwyn Garden City
1981
Luton Museum & Art Gallery
Hitchin Museum & Art Gallery
1982
The Morley Gallery, Westminster
1983,84
Dower House Gallery, Berkhampsted
1983
Brighton Polytechnic
Walton Hall, Open University
1986
The Yarrow Gallery, Oundle School
Dan Sullivan Gallery, Bedford
1987,89,91,
93,95,97,
99,2000
The Anna Mai Chadwick Gallery London
1990
West Dean College, Sussex
1994,96,
2000
The Caito Gallery, London
1997,99
The Manor House Gallery, Chipping Norton
1998
Unda Blackstone Gallery, Pinner
Orleans House, Richmond
1999
The City Gallery, London
2004
Cedar House Gallery, Surrey
2005
Chappel Galleries, Essex
   
MIXED EXHIBITIONS
   
1988
The York Contemporary Arts Fair
Bedford Artists' Exhibition, Cyprus
1990,91,92,
93
The Adam Gallery, Bath
1990
The Daler Gallery, Bournemouth
The RBSA Galleries, Birmingham, Pastel Exhibition
1996
The David Messum Gallery, London
1998
Linda Blackstone Gallery, Pinner
The John Blockley Gallery, Gloucester
   
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
   
1982
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
1990
The Hunting Prize Exhibition
Singer & Friedlander Water Colour Competition
   
PUBLICATIONS
   
1986
The Artist
1988
Art Review
1989
'Creating a Self Portrait', by Tom Coates, Pub. Michael Beazley
1990,92,
2000
Leisure Painter
1994
The Complete Drawing' Course by Ian Simpson, Pub. Collins
Country Living Magazine
1995
The Artist's Manual', Pub. Collins
1997
Antique Collecting Magazine
2001
The Winsor & Newton Magazine
Demonstrations & Art Course Tutor:
1980-95
Art Clubs & Societies in the Midland and Southern Regions
1990
Art Materials Fair, London
1992,2000,
02
Art in Action, Oxfordshire
1993
Jo Bromley Memorial Workshop, Frensham Heights School
Artist Tutor:
1968-90
Cassio College, Watford, Tutor Organiser - Art
1981-83
Barnfield College, Luton
1980-86
Phillips House, Salisbury
1983-91
Elstow Craft Centre, Bedford
1984-90
Flatford Mill Field Study Centre, Suffolk
1990-2001
West Dean College, Chichester

 

 
 
 
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