Freya Purdue

Biography

Freya Purdue currently lives and works on the Isle of Wight. She studied at St Martins School of Art and Chelsea College of Art & Design and was a Senior Lecturer in Painting there for 25 years. She has been the recipient a number of awards for painting and the Cardiff Fellowship in Painting, the Digswell Arts Fellowship, the Boise Travelling Scholarship to New York and Villers David Travelling Scholarship to Italy.

Recent group exhibitions include; Beyond Other Horizons; Iasi Palace of Culture, Rumania, Made in Britain; at the National Gallery of Poland, Gdansk and Contemporary British Painting; at Yantai Art Museum, Jiangsu Arts Museum, Artall Nanjing and Tianjing Academy of Fine Arts China. 

In the UK 2020/19 shows include Solo show; ‘Freya Purdue at the Edge; Yellow Edge Gallery, Gosport. A duo show Ennui Refigured; at APT Gallery, London and a number of group shows including; Mountain Size; Pineapple Black Gallery, Middlesborough, Cambridge Summer Open, New Painting; Norwich Cathedral Hostry Gallery, Points of View; Randan Stables Gallery. 

About the Work

My paintings inhabit the border between abstraction and figuration and have their basis in exploration through seeing, experience, research and engagement with the tactility of painting. I draw on a wide range of sources from the most obvious classical themes in painting to the subtlety of scientific, philosophical and mystical thought. In making paintings I am absorbed in the discovery of an energised sense of connection and consciousness between people and cultural traditions, both ancient and modern. I love to think about ideas, objects or artefacts that have endured and been passed through many generations which can operate as points of focus or as triggers for new sets of work.  

The use of colour in the painting for me, is extremely important and is vital to the sense of presence and energy that underpins each work. I approach each painting as a new journey, a new kind of sensitivity and living energy to be realised. Each painting has an energetic force drawn from its original idea which is nurtured in an to attempt to achieve a resolution that communicates this energy both through colour and drawing. For me, the great thing about painting is that it has limitless potentialities!

See Freya’s Lockdown Interview here -

About this work

The small gouache paintings are part of a series of works on paper they sometimes find a title and sometimes not. A title arose for the Horizon painting as it links with other work I have done on this subject.