Marcy Freedman

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Artist statement

My work begins with language and personal experience. I am interested in how words shape the way we understand ourselves and one another. Language can create intimacy and connection, but it they can also distort, manipulate, wound and control. I often begin with words, and follow them to the point where meaning becomes unstable and language gives way to abstraction. My recent work grew out of a difficult professional relationship and the several years of text message exchanges that accompanied it. I began using fragments of these conversations as material, transforming something private into a broader exploration of power, misogyny, and control. I am interested in how these dynamics become embedded in ordinary interactions, and in the distance between what is said and what is actually taking place. I work across painting, photography, video, sculpture, and text. Images and ideas often move through several processes: they are painted, photographed, altered digitally, printed, and sometimes painted again. Through repetition and layering, the original material shifts. It becomes less fixed, allowing other meanings and emotions to surface. Abstraction offers a different kind of language. In my paintings, I allow color, gesture, accident, and intuition to take over. The work can be exuberant and seductive while also carrying a sense of discomfort or instability. I am drawn to that tension, the possibility that attraction and unease can exist at the same time. Materials are...

Artwork