Eric Freeman (b. 1970) is an American artist whose monumental, monochromatic oil paintings are rendered in an abstract vocabulary that evokes optical illusions of landscapes. His paintings bear reference to the legacy of Color Field Painting, an art movement hailing – like himself – from New York. In Color Field Painting, color is freed from its secondary function and becomes the subject in its own right. The crude geometric forms of Freeman’s paintings seem to pulsate and radiate an electric glow internally. Freeman is a master manipulator of color, forcing his chosen hues to perform tricks and illusions of depth, texture, and movement, evoking a sense of three-dimensionality with a highly reductive repertoire of color planes.
Freeman’s paintings infuse the space with an arresting atmosphere that borders on the sacred. His work is profound and emotionally evocative in its stripped beauty as if expressing a yearning for infinity. In his pursuit of the boundless, Freeman eradicates his paintings of all imaginary forms and symbols, focusing solely on the expressive power of color.
Experimentation with color is an integral part of Freeman’s practice; the special glow of his canvases is achieved with bold and unusual color combinations. Pulsating with a special meditative quality, his work carries on the metaphysical legacy of modern painters such as Mark Rothko and Josef Albers. Freeman’s paintings similarly invite and compel us to contemplate fundamental questions related to our existence.
Freeman is a graduate of Tufts University in Boston. He has held numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe, and his work is included in such collections as Parrish Art Museum in Watermill, New York, Saatchi Collection in London, Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation and the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki. The artist lives and works in New York.