Bruno David presents Obstacle and Void, an exhibition by Missouri-based artist Damon Freed. This is the artist eight-solo exhibition with the gallery.
Damon Freed states "The inspiration for this new series of paintings, is tied to a spiritual place from within deeply resonating color harmonies registering below the level of sound mostly, and beyond our vocabulary of spoken words. Then, aesthetically, I work it out compositionally and color-wise, finding balance through harmony and the proper scales! The work is involved with science to a slight degree; experimentally using color ratios, I move forward. All these aspects come together in my paintings. I’m calling them Obstacles and Voids because of their connection to my spatial thinking for them! There are lessons here to be learned.
The marks that sit on the surfaces of some of the paintings are painted on top of, therefore you go into the fabric of the pieces, the surrounds, metaphysically with a gaze. Like boulders in your way on paths, the obstacles are realized, the marks that are abutted to the surfaces. The fabric surrounds are like the sky behind the boulders, you go into them, metaphysically. The color penetrates the fabric with a palette knife process. This I do first. I press the pure colors into the weaves of the canvases with my palette knives. Like obstacles in life, you see them first, recognize them second, and then can rest into the void spaces of life.
Damon Freed works and lives in Missouri. He received an M.F.A. from Hunter College, New York, and a B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York.
