Kaye Freeman: Paintings

Kaye Freeman’s work is informed by diverse influences. The way she arranges an image mirrors the shifting perspective of classical Japanese landscape, while her knowledge of that country’s calligraphic tradition shapes her commitment to immediacy and narrative. She’s interested too in the symbolism of color using it to raise issues of gender and race alongside more formal concerns and in the religious associations of light. In her recent series City Paintings, Freeman explores the layered reality of Los Angeles, California her urban home. The artist is a keen observer of the varied and complex ways in which the locale’s diverse peoples and places harmonize and clash with one another. From actors to gang members, crumbling vintage structures to expansive new developments, she details a complex economic, social, and aesthetic matrix in which sunshine and darkness coexist. In another series, Freeman departs from the city to depict the rural landscape of Joshua Tree.