NYAB Event - James Freedman "Abstract Paintings"

James Freedman "Abstract Paintings"

Björn Ressle Gallery

This event has ended.

James J. Freedman was born 1958, in Cleveland Ohio. He was educated at Kenyon College, Gambier Ohio, and graduated Cum Laude and Dean's List, majoring and earning a B.A. in psychology. James continued his education at Ohio State University College of Law, earning his J.D. in 1983.

In his early years, Freedman found his artistic voice in music, studying piano from a young age through college. After considering a career in piano performance, Freedman decided instead to attend law school. He began his law career in 1983, and was most recently a partner in the New York City office of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, P.C., representing lenders and developers in commercial real estate finance and banking.

For 26 years James handled complex business negotiations for clients in the financial sector by understanding the importance of conveying the specific messages of each party in a concise and clear manner, which resulted in many successful transactions.

However, he felt constricted and was compelled to return to art and therefore began painting in 2007. Subsequently, he took a leave of absence from his firm to devote himself full time in his pursuit of becoming an artist. With courage and tenacity and guidance from some of his artist friends, James honed his skills and developed his style which resulted in an estimable body of abstract works that are compositionally admirable, as well as amply expressive on a visceral level.

"As I became more familiar with the development of painting through the years, it was apparent that in earlier periods, "organization" lay at the heart of artwork. In the course of many years, that element of organization was no longer crucial, at least at the visceral level. Paintings could appear to have a randomness to them, a fundamental
change in approach. Concurrently, acceptable subject matter broadened, giving artists far greater freedom.

I am fascinated by the juxtaposition of order and disorder (or organization and randomness, if you please), and how a single work can integrate both elements in one fashion or another. I have consciously attempted to integrate the two elements into my paintings, such that certain elements thereof appear to be the result of adherence to basic principles, while others evidence a departure from any rules. This holds true for all facets, including color, shape, structure and medium.

Soon after I resolved to make painting a focal point in my life, I began to visit museums and private galleries in earnest, eager to gain an understanding of the evolution of painting over the centuries as well as the central elements of style and practice common to artists of all ages. In the studio, I found myself rapidly working toward the development of my own "style", discovering instead that as soon as a style starts to feel comfortable to me, I must make changes, sometimes subtle, sometimes profound, in order to maintain a vitality to the paintings.

It is my hope that viewers of my more recent work will find that despite the apparent simplicity in the colors, shapes and textures of the paintings, there is an elegance, almost a musicality, in the structure of each piece."