Mark Freedman Exhibits Urban Grit - Inside Art With Michael Rose

Mark Freedman Exhibits Urban Grit - Inside Art With Michael Rose

 

Mark Freedman was born in New York City and relocated to upstate New York when he was five. He took courses at a community college before being drafted into the army and later, through the GI Bill, he was able to study in the night school at SUNY’s campus in Buffalo. After a move to Rhode Island, he pursued additional studio art courses at Rhode Island College using a spousal fee waiver. Through these experiences and with the help of several mentors, he honed a style that remains uniquely recognizable. His interest in cities and other post-industrial environments comes through in all of his work and brings viewers along in reconsidering what subjects are worthy of being captured in paint.

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Providence Picture Frame is one of the state’s most storied art businesses. Founded in the 1800’s and housed for a time in The Arcade, it was located, until recently, in a meandering space within a repurposed mill on Branch Avenue. In the parlance of Rhode Islanders, it was adjacent to where Benny’s used to be. Just prior to the pandemic, Providence Picture Frame moved to a bright and glassy new space at 1350 Mineral Spring Avenue in North Providence, and its rotating exhibitions space known as Dryden Gallery came along too. On view through October 23, 2021, Dryden Gallery at Providence Picture Frame offers a collection of paintings of Freedman that show off urban scenes with remarkable texture, depth, and grit.

 

 

Where some artists focus on the grand verticality of urban spaces, Freedman’s imagery is often horizontal and takes as its subject the overpass, the avenue, or the airport runway. He is interested not in the iconic architecture of cities but in unassuming streetscapes and also in the transportation networks that knit metropolitan areas together. Planes, trains, and automobiles populate his paintings, often giving them a sense of speed and excitement that parallels their real-life counterparts. The resulting body of work, developed over a long career as a professional artist, is one that celebrates that aesthetic complexity of densely built places.

In the paintings on view now at Dryden Gallery, viewers will have to look intently in order to unpack Freedman’s method of construction. Unusual materials like electrical tape show up alongside copious daubs of paint. When viewed up close, recognizable streets or elevated subway lines disintegrate into thoughtfully composed abstractions. Paint is seemingly smeared, or dripped, or troweled onto surfaces that burst with visual activity. Freedman is an artist who relishes in making a mess.

 

 

As someone who has been on the scene for decades, Freedman’s work has found its way into collections throughout the region and beyond. In Providence, bargoers might even unwittingly sip a cocktail below one of the artist’s signature pieces. At The Eddy, a toney spot downtown, an enormous painting by Freedman occupies one wall of the intimate bar. Set off by exposed brick and sleek wood paneling, an image of an airliner evokes romantic wanderlust.

Freedman’s paintings on view at Dryden Gallery are more domestic in scale but are nonetheless impressive in scope. Without filling an entire wall, the compositions on display bare the heft that is typical of the artist’s work. They are absorbing and atmospheric.

 

 

When one thinks of the great painters of urban life, Georgia O’Keeffe’s New York period might come to mind. Edward Hopper’s name might, too. While these predecessors were keenly aware of spooky silences, Freedman’s work is more often focused on the lively way the built environment reacts to light. He can conjure the brick, mortar, asphalt, and cement with tonal subtlety. Freedman’s paintings are noisier than O’Keeffe’s or Hopper’s, and tend to include the clatter of urban life. In images on view in his current exhibition, the profiles of classic cars zoom through space while children play in groups on sidewalks. Planes take off and touch down, while buses and subway cars rattle through the scene.

In his most recent series of paintings, Freedman thrillingly shows off the hustle and bustle of urban life from New York to Los Angeles and in doing so makes every viewer a city dweller.

 

 

Beyond Freedman’s show, Dryden Gallery at Providence Picture Frame offers a broad selection of original artworks including other paintings by Freedman in their vast inventory. Freedman is also represented by Charlestown Gallery in South County and by Ray Wiggs Gallery in Provincetown.

Mark Freedman’s work will be on view at Dryden Gallery through October 23, 2021. Providence Picture Frame and Dryden Gallery is located at 1350 Mineral Spring Avenue in North Providence and is open 9 am - 5 pm, Mondays through Saturdays.

For more information about the current exhibition visit www.drydengallery.com. To learn more about Mark Freedman, visit his website www.markfreedman-paintings.com.