Artist Spotlight: Daniel Freaker
Daniel Freaker is a painter based in Portsmouth, U.K.. He has a background in print, video, film, and photography, and now focuses on painting. Daniel’s work is featured in our ‘One by One’ Group Exhibition.
Read through to learn more about Daniel’s life and work below.
Daniel Freaker lives and works in Portsmouth, U.K. While studying at University he explored print, video, film, and photography but now concentrates primarily on painting. His work is by contemporaries, such as Doig, Tuymans, and Armitage, and is often reminiscent of iconic film scenes and narratives.
His paintings’ subjects aim to provoke thoughts of relationships or isolation. Through scenes and color palettes, Daniel evokes feelings of sentiment and longing with a twist of warmth and radiance. While many elements are true to reality and show traditional processes, some distortions exaggerate the emotional significance of the moment: connection, loss, vulnerability, or loneliness… This juxtaposition between vibrance and darkness adds to the intrigue of Daniel’s work.
Additionally, his work combines elements of abstract and expressive mark-making with figurative details. Some details are defined and clear whereas others are more suggestive and evocative. The techniques emphasize the qualities of contemporary media, acrylic, and ink through washes, drips, drops, and gestural and expressive mark-making. There are also more unusual processes such as lifting and removal of paint that expose sensual textures, and generate a sense of nostalgia about moments that are both beautiful and painful. This act of combining processes adds to the richness of the work.
The experimental nature of Freaker’s work has evolved over thirteen years of collaboration, experimentation, and creative risk-taking as a lecturer and tutor in art and design. He has lectured on many subjects during his education career including painting, fine art, print, moving images, and graphic design, both in the U.K. and internationally. He continues to contribute to the art and design curriculum internationally through by contributing to forward looking creative qualifications.
Can you share a bit about your artistic journey? What led you to concentrate on painting?
”I fell in love with painting, because I love the immediacy of it. I love the concentration on every single drip and drop and pool of colour. It’s the tension between trying to control things and also encouraging creative accidents that is so powerful. I have worked in a lot of different media before and trained as a graphic designer. I have worked as a photographer and web designer and I think these have influenced my sense of composition and use of structure and spaces in my work.”
Who inspires your work? What aspects of their work particularly resonate in your paintings?
”Michael Armitage and Peter Doig are painters that I am always drawn to. But I am just as interested in film and literature and am influenced by the ideas and images I see in the work of Terrence Mallick films like The Thin Red Line or Tarkovsky’s Solaris and The Stalker. I love the framing and how each image is a story unto itself. I also love science fiction and utopian/dystopian ideas that make us think about our trajectory and where we are going. Questions that tell us a lot about ourselves now.”
How has your background as a lecturer and tutor shaped your art?
”Being an art lecturer is a luxury. It allowed me to explore and experiment creatively along with the students. I always encouraged students to take creative risks and be very experimental and I learned a lot through the discussions and workshops. I think the most important part of teaching creative subjects is to create a framework for really thinking about what you are doing and always asking the difficult questions. The experience made me passionate about education and always want to learn. For each painting, I challenge myself to try something new. It may not always be obvious to the audience, but I learn something new each time.”
Your paintings include both abstract elements and figures, what does your creative process look like to include both?
”I have a huge collection of images. They are cataloged along the lines of the different projects I am working on or things I would like to explore. They include spaces and people that I see and that provoke an idea in me that suggests a feeling I have had or that I think others will also have felt. Something that is common to all of us and that we can share in as a common language.”
Much of your work incorporates film scenes and cinematic composition, what is one of your favorite films?
”I always go back to the film Bladerunner by Ridley Scott. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen it and can recount the words instantly. I love the cinematography, the pace, and most importantly the ideas about ourselves that it provokes. Being so passionate about the film is sometimes a burden in that I compare most films I see to it as a standard. Overall, I am a huge film fan and love the practice behind it. Having worked a lot with moving images and video during my masters, I like to think about how things are made and how those feelings it provokes are a careful art of lighting, composition, color grading, sound and all sorts of other considerations.”
What do you hope viewers take away from your work?
”I would love the audience to feel inspired by the colors and compositions, but also to provoke a small sense of unease. I think the work needs that kind of tension, where there is beauty, but also where something doesn’t quite sit right.”
Looking ahead, are there any projects or goals you have for the upcoming year?
”I have several new shows in the USA and this is important for me. Most of my collectors are based in the US and it’s great to be able to bring the actual work to this audience and connect with new audiences. I am also working on a new series connected to bridges that will be on a large scale and I am really excited about the sense of power and awe this might bring.”
‘Lead by Curiosity’
12’’x12’’
Acrylic on Board
*Sold
