tom de freston: the charnel house

BREESE LITTLE | Tom de Freston: The Charnel House

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Tom de Freston: The Charnel House

13 November 2013 – 11 January 2014

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Tom de Freston: The Charnel House 30b Great Sutton Street London, EC1V 0DU 13 November 2013 – 11 January 2014 They inspire in the reader/viewer the same sense of disquiet and dread and awe – because there is beauty too. It’s like you’ve both breathed in his darkness and made it your own. Sir Anthony Sher on House of the Deaf Man Obsessed by images of humanity on the very edge of disintegration, Tom de Freston is audacious enough to convey our most haunted fears about a world struggling for survival in the twenty-first century. Richard Cork

The Charnel House is the culmination of Tom de Freston’s recent series of large-scale paintings, piecing together theatrical fragments of a wider narrative. Horse-headed figures are the recurrent central characters, appearing in desperate and tortured scenarios, where they precariously grasp at one another, life and death. Relationships shift and change across the canvases as de Freston puppeteers newly challenging contexts.

Intimate interiors and domestic settings replete with uncannily everyday flowers, light bulbs, bathtubs, doorways and windows form flatly painted stages, reminiscent of de Freston’s previous bodies of work. Elsewhere, the beseeching protagonist is contained by a chequerboard stage or mattress if not reappearing in vast sublime landscapes framed by a swirling tempest.

De Freston’s careful balance between thick, frenzied passages of oil and sleek, one-dimensional blue backgrounds destabilises a secure reading of the work, emphasising the ambitious proportions of this complex mythology which never rests. The Charnel House reaches its expressive pitch with crucifixion scenes and apocalyptic diptychs, massing the cast together in its entirety, recalling the final scene devices of epic literature and playwrights.

The Charnel House is accompanied by a full exhibition catalogue with a foreword by Simon Martin, Head of Collections and Exhibitions, Pallant House, and an essay by Christiana Spens, novelist and PhD candidate, University of St Andrews. Please contact the gallery for more details.

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There will be an artist talk with Tom de Freston on Tuesday 26th November, 7pm.

The Charnel House coincides with Tom de Freston: Paintings After Shakespeare at the Globe, 4th November – 20th December 2013. De Freston was commissioned by The British Shakespeare Association to produce a body of paintings in response to Shakespeare’s plays in 2010. These were unveiled in September 2011 and toured extensively, including a two painting display at Pallant House, Chichester and The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Tokyo.

Tom de Freston (born 1983, UK) lives and works in Oxford. De Freston graduated from Cambridge University (MA Cantab History of Art) in 2007 and Leeds Metropolitan University (BA Fine Art) in 2005. Selected solo exhibitions and presentations include The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University, Tokyo (2012), On Theatre, BREESE LITTLE, London (2012), Shakespeare Paintings (two painting display), Pallant House, Chichester (2012), The Hatley Residency, The Centre for Recent Drawing, London (2012), On Falling, BREESE LITTLE, London (2011), Scavengers: Paintings and Poems in Response to Shakespeare, Cambridge University Shakespeare Conference, Cambridge (2011) and A Brief History of Heroism, Platform 1 Gallery, London (2009). Selected group exhibitions include Manski, Cohen, de Freston, BREESE LITTLE (2013) and WEYA – World Event Young Artists, Nottingham (2012). De Freston’s work is featured in international collections including The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, The Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge University, The Public Catalogue Foundation, London and Christ’s College Chapel, Cambridge University. Selected publications include House of the Deaf Man by Andrea Porter and Tom de Freston, Gatehouse Press, 2012, Scavengers: Paintings and Poems in Response to the Plays of Shakespeare by Tom de Freston and Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Cambridge Shakespeare Conference, 2010, and Figuring Out Figurative Art: Contemporary Philosophers on Contemporary Painting, Acumen Publishing, 2014 (forthcoming).

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Foreword

Over the last decade Tom de Freston has developed a body of work that is ambitious in its intent, courageous in its determination to tackle major themes of the tragicomedy of human existence, and self-knowing in its reference to the rich iconography of art history and literature. From his earlier paintings exploring Shakespearian themes of violence and power within theatrical tableaux, de Freston has refocused his work to address contemporary themes of human conflict associated with the so-called ‘War on Terror’.

Implicit within each of de Freston’s paintings there is a consciously unresolved tension between opposites: beauty and horror, tragedy and comedy, the sublime and the ridiculous, and between the gestural qualities of passages of scumbled paint and hard-edged flatness. Freely quoting from great artworks of the past by the likes of Michael Andrews, Francis Bacon, Patrick Caulfield, Théodore Géricault, Pablo Picasso and Titian, de Freston’s paintings represent archetypal moments such as the Deposition, Lamentation, Last Judgement, or the hapless Actaeon’s discovery of Diana, in order to make forceful and uncomfortable statements about the darkest moments of humanity. De Freston repeatedly depicts thresholds – not just in the physical sense of doorways or platforms like gangplanks above a chasm - but also in the sense of the point at which one starts to feel or react to something: a painterly provocation.

Simon Martin, November 2013

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The Aesthetics of Violence in the Work of Tom de Freston

Tom de Freston’s body of work is an ever-expanding parallel world, where the darkest aspects of human nature emerge in frames and tones of comedy and tragedy, animation and rigidity, fusing an adventurous and provocative imagination with knowing insights into the recognisable real world. His canvases have depicted Shakespearean heroes and villains in grotesque, and very modern, environments, where a sense of acute claustrophobia expands and compounds with each new room compacted in canvas. There is a careful combination of brilliant imagination, of testing the very limits of human freedom and desire, along with spaces that are prison-like and oppressive. In each canvas there is a struggle between environment and desire, between ambiguous characters, between beauty and horror.

In De Freston’s most recent works, these conflicts are brought to a new crescendo, and a fresh relevance brought to modern preoccupations, secrets, and shame. Paintings concerned with water-boarding, public (and private) violence, and ideas of dehumanisation and pain, all follow logically from his previous work, and bring the uncanny connections between Shakespearean themes of human cruelty and dark magic, to situations that reference the contemporary iconography of terrorism and warfare. The spectacles of violence, whether inspired by Shakespeare or Abu Ghraib, are consistently horrifying and fascinating; as viewers we are challenged by these twin sensations of revulsion and interest, of recognition and distance, and by the implications of these reactions for our wider culture that seems to promote a sensationalism of this performed violence. De Freston, rather than exploit that cultural, and perhaps human tendency, allows us to step back and realise how horrifying that behaviour is (rather than simply the acts of torture themselves). Twice removed from the violence, perhaps, we might acquire some humanity in contemplating, with De Freston, the bizarre ritualization and performance of violence that is so prevalent in the culture he considers, as well as the history of art he references and learns from, particularly the work of Titian, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Rubens, J. L. David, Gericault, Delacroix, Picasso, Bacon, De Kooning and Richter. In Dead Son (2011) the aerial view suspends a moment of familial grief, leaving the viewer feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic, the blood red endowing the scene with the needless tragedy of war. Last Judgement (2013) depicts a cascade of semi human figures nose-diving in to oblivion, where the living figure and his dog appear to have arrived at this scene unexpectedly.

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De Freston’s new works employ a lexicon of images to create a sense of arbitrariness and dismay: horses and horse heads, architectural forms: doors, windows; and art historical references create compositions that can be seen to plead against the madness of corrupt power systems that have institutionalised grotesque torture practices. The artist creates both mayhem (in which the viewer feels diminished) and a sense of apocalyptic urgency too; while at the same time there are sombre haunting presences too within the same picture plane leaving the viewer perplexed. In A Pity (2013) Van Gogh’s Sunflowers are given a token presence, painted in a decorative mode redolent of digital processes, the flattening of form and blocks of colour; a light bulb makes a reference to Francis Bacon and also to Philip Guston, both of whom delved into the depths of human depravity. The platform on which the horse/man figures are placed is an ambiguous form, somewhere between a sofa and a deconstructed architectural model – floating in space with the storm above creating a sense of doom or Romantic drama. De Freston juxtaposes random forms to create messages and images that must be navigated by the viewer: a hovering theatrical stage is rather more like Dr Who’s Tardis than anything homelike, attached to the ground. Storms are created through painterly sections of a canvas such as that in A Pity (2013), where a tidal wave pours through the bathroom ceiling. Raft (2013) makes reference to Théodore Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, (1819) which told the story of a shipwreck where the captain evacuated the ship with his crew leaving 149 passengers on a makeshift raft, cut adrift, leaving them to suffer and die. The episode, graphically captured by Géricault, created a political scandal. De Freston’s raft is inhabited by golems, the clay figures from Jewish legend who come to life by magic. The desperate drowning figures here with black eye sockets hover desperately between life and death – a searing image of human cruelty and suffering.

De Freston’s own experience directing and observing both actual theatre, and wider media versions of world political events, have also contributed to this construction. In the former, a scene where “witches water-boarding Macbeth” emerged in later drawings and then canvases, meaning that the concern for the drama of conflict and violence were filtered through a staged production. As an audience member, of sorts, the artist’s portrayal of the media’s depiction of terrorism enables him to find resonant forms for the unpalatable truths diluted through mass media. De Freston in fact started his Fine Art Foundation course on September 11th 2001 and he views his artistic development to have taken place in the wake of the event, the ramifications of which have cast a dark shadow over global politics since.

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While De Freston’s recent work side steps an overt political message, his referencing of torture and power relations will inevitably inspire political thought in many viewers. His primary fascination is with human nature, which does not as such condemn; rather he presents human drama in all its ambiguity and complexity. Informed by the study of History of Art at Cambridge, De Freston’s approach to the painting of violence has evolved in parallel to the definition of his personal ideas about the role of art in society. Whilst doubting the power of painting to change views or to offer up theoretical solutions or spiritual experiences, de Freston states: “I do still believe that works of art can be part of a wider network of experiences and ways of thinking and seeing that can help shift and change the structures of our society. This is quite an idealistic, optimistic and Romantic hope.” (De Freston, 2013)

Aware of the challenges of painting, in a world where commercial interests and critical acclaim may lead to an elite appreciation, rather than a wider audience and implicit social value, and aware of the downfalls of even a slightly Romantic vision of the artist’s role in society, De Freston nevertheless persists with the most admirable qualities of that philosophy. In choosing to paint, and in allowing difficult themes of human cruelty and public violence to emerge in his work, a spirit of liberty and intellectual freedom flourishes. It is of course up to the viewers to react in ways that may affect social change – “Ultimately it is politics and communities that make changes, not art,” – but De Freston has at the very least given viewers the provocation to think freely about universal issues that have fascinated him for years, and which are of relevance and interest to audiences in our immediate environment, and far beyond.

Christiana Spens, October 2013

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Last Judgement (Configuration A) 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 300 cm

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Last Judgement (Configuration B) 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 300 cm

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Splitfall 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 300 cm

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By Any Other Name/Danae 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Pandora 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Crucifixion 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Diana 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Split 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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You can make it drink 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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A Lover Wept 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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They Know What They Do 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Raft I 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Bathroom 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Hung 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Mother Wept 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Raft II 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Storm – After Robertson 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Last Judgement 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Beneath the Roses 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Crowning 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Cliff 2012 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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What the Water Gave Us 2012 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Quartet – Stage One 2012 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Quartet – Stage Two 2012 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Quartet – Stage Three 2012 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Quartet – Stage Four 2012 Oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Biography b. 1983, lives and works in Oxford / www.tomdefreston.co.uk

Education 2005 - 07 Cambridge University, MA (Cantab) History of Art 2002 - 05 Leeds Metropolitan University, BA (Hons), Fine Art Solo Exhibitions (*forthcoming) 2013 The Charnel House, BREESE LITTLE, London Paintings After Shakespeare, The Globe Theatre, London 2012 Tom de Freston, The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum of Waseda University, Tokyo On Theatre, BREESE LITTLE, 30d Great Sutton Street, London Shakespeare Paintings, Pallant House, Chichester (two painting display) 2011 On Falling, BREESE LITTLE, Clerkenwell, London Scavengers, British Shakespeare Association, Cambridge Deposition, Christ’s College Chapel, Cambridge Nine days they fell, University Library, Cambridge Fall of the Rebel Angels, Michelhouse Chancel, Cambridge 2010 Exiles, Brick Lane Gallery, London Fallen with him, St Peter’s Church (Kettles Yard Gallery), Cambridge 2009 Reflections, Christ’s College, Cambridge A Brief History of History Painting, Studio 106, London A Brief History of Heroism, Platform 1 Gallery, London 2008 Between Somewhere and Nowhere, Museum of Classical Archeology, Cambridge Theatre of Limbo, The Loft Theatre, Royal Leamington Spa Swimmer of Lethe, The Gallery, Stratford Upon Avon Group Exhibitions (*forthcoming) 2013 Manski, Cohen, de Freston, BREESE LITTLE, 30d Great Sutton Street, London 2012 WEYA – World Event Young Artists, multiple venues, Nottingham 2011 Flying Colours/Fascinating Forms, Assembly House, Norwich Darkness Visible (curator and contributor), Royal College of Art, London 2010 Making it Faking it, Orleans House Gallery, Richmond 2009 One and Other (Napoleon’s Shadow), Trafalgar Square, London Corpus, BREESE LITTLE, The Old Chapel, London

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The Dying Animal, The Shop, Cambridge On Air, Christ’s College Visual Arts Centre, Cambridge Selected Bibliography (*forthcoming) 2014 Figuring Out Figurative Art: Contemporary Philosophers on Contemporary Painting,

Damien Freeman (Ed.), Acumen Publishing* 2012 Entropy At Work, featuring Tom De Freston, James Cahill, ELEPHANT, October 2012 On Doubles and Disillusionment in the Golem Paintings of Tom de Freston, James Cahill,

BREESE LITTLE House of the Deaf Man, in collaboration with poet Andrea Porter, Gatehouse Press

2011 On Falling, Exhibition Catalogue, BREESE LITTLE Deposition, Green Pebble Publications, Foreword by Sir Nicholas Serota, Essays by the

Hon. Rowan Williams, Graham Howes, Jaya Savige and Ruth Padel Scavengers: Paintings and Poems in Response to the Plays of Shakespeare, in collaboration with poet Kiran Millwood-Hargrave, Edward Quekett (Ed.), with a foreword by Dr Abigail Rokison and an essay by Sir Trevor Nunn

2010 Ekphrasis, Freewood Publications, fifteen poets’ response to the work of Tom de Freston,

special contribution by John Mole, edited by Kiran Millwood-Hargrave Reflections, Exhibition Catalogue, Tablo Arts Prizes, Awards and Grants 2012 The Hatley Residency, Centre for Recent Drawing, London 2010 - 11 The Leverhulme Artist in Residence, Cambridge University 2009 - 11 Artist in Residence, The Leys School 2008 - 09 The Levy Plumb Visual Arts Residency, Christ’s College, Cambridge Collections The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University, Tokyo Museum of Classical Archeology, Cambridge University, Cambridge The Public Catalogue Foundation, London Trinity College Art Collection, Cambridge University, Cambridge Wolfson College Art Collection, Cambridge University, Cambridge History of Art Department, Cambridge University, Cambridge St. Edmunds College Art Collection, Cambridge University, Cambridge Christ’s College MCR, Cambridge University, Cambridge Christ’s College Chapel, Cambridge University, Cambridge

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BREESE LITTLE 30b Great Sutton Street

London EC1V ODU

Directors:

Josephine Breese Henry Little

Contact:

[email protected] 07984 950951

Website:

www.breeselittle.com

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tom de freston: the charnel house

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