Joanne Freeman
1954
(USA)
AMERICAN
Joanne Freeman is an American abstract painter who creates minimalist reductive paintings and works on paper, featuring hard-edged abstract forms and bold, vivid, gestural markings. She lives and works in New York City.
Education
Freeman attended the University of Wisconsin, where she earned a B.S. in Fine Arts in 1976. She earned her M.A. in Studio Art from New York University in 1981. She has taught painting and drawing at NYU and The New School for Social Research and worked as a visiting artist and lecturer at The New York Studio School and the Massachusetts College of Art.
Technique
The American artist paints with gouache on Khadi, a handmade Indian paper fashioned from long-fibered cotton. Her oeuvre is exemplified by vivid colors, geometric shapes, hard edge lines, and curved, gestural marks painted against white backgrounds. Freeman presents a reductive visual language that references urban symbols and signs, architectural patterns, and the interplay between shadow and light.
Freeman's process involves taping off areas to create hard edges, and combining those areas of control with spontaneous mark making. The scale of her works and the marks she creates are both dictated by the extent of her physical reach. The resulting images express physicality, emotion, limitation, and randomness, combined with a precise, minimalist aesthetic.
Inspiration
Freeman is heavily influenced by the ideas of the Bauhaus School, which emphasized combining the ideas and techniques of art, architecture, and design. She endeavors to present new forms in a simple way.
The artist is also influenced by Mid-Century modern graphic design aesthetics. The hard edge look of many of her images references well-defined shadows created by sunlight on buildings. She's an admirer of the work of reductive artists such as Ellsworth Kelly, Paul Feeley, and Kenneth Noland.
Collections
Her striking pieces are included in numerous corporate collections, including those of The Prudential, Readers Digest, and the University of Maine Museum of Art, as well as private collections including those of Gail Stavitsky, the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions for the Montclair Art Museum, and Andy Summers, guitarist for the band The Police.
Exhibitions
Freeman has exhibited her amazing paintings extensively in galleries and museums, in solo and group exhibitions, throughout the US and internationally. The artist's solo show entitled Recent Paintings and Drawings was on display at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, NY, in February 2016. Her art has been reviewed in ARTnews and The New York Observer.
Galleries
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY.
Gilman Contemporary, Ketchum, Idaho
Blue Print Gallery, Dallas, Texas
Amelie, Maison d’art, Paris, France
Original Abstract Ink Art You Shouldn't Miss
The ink art has been around for millennia - from its uncouth and scanty Greek beginnings to the most sophisticated artworks created during Tang and Song dynasties in China and followed by the Muro...
Read more
Don't Feel Blue - Buy Blue Abstract Art Instead!
For most of its early history, humans were blue-blind. Homer in his evocative descriptions alluded to a wine-red sea while the ancient elucidations of natural phenomena like rainbow plainly exclud...
Read more
You'll Simply Love These Abstract Art Prints For Sale!
A centuries-old process of creating artwork by printing found itself at the forefront of contemporary art as horizons of the visual reflected the cascading transformations of human experience that...
Read more
Ten Affordable Abstract Art Pieces to Get Under £1000
If you are on the lookout for exclusive and affordable abstract art, you are in the right place! IdeelArt brings quality and original abstract art from the artists' studio directly to you, seamles...
Read more
Give the Gift of Abstract Art This Christmas!
As the premier online gallerists for contemporary abstraction, we at IdeelArt are passionate about the meaning and beauty to be found in abstract art. It is an honor for us to be able to represent...
Read more
Diversity is Key to the Future of American Abstract Artists
When American Abstract Artists (AAA) was founded in 1936, most critics and curators considered abstract art too “European” to be “American.” The irony of that prejudice, of course, is that America...
Read more
Finding the Best Art for Interior Designers
The relationship between art and interior design is complex. Every interior designer has an ongoing need for original fine art. But few fine artists embark on the creation of new work with the sta...
Read more
