My paintings inhabit the border between abstraction and figuration and have their basis in exploration through seeing, experience, research and engagement with the tactility of the process of painting. I draw on a wide range of sources from the most obvious classical themes in painting to the subtlety of philosophical and mystical thought. In making paintings I am absorbed in the discovery of an energized sense of connection and consciousness both between people, historical traditions and boarders of perception from whence things emerge out of creative potentiality into a new expression of existence.
My paintings inhabit the border between abstraction and figuration and have their basis in exploration through seeing, experience, research and engagement with the tactility of the process of painting. I draw on a wide range of sources from the most obvious classical themes in painting to the subtlety of philosophical and mystical thought. In making paintings I am absorbed in the discovery of an energized sense of connection and consciousness both between people, historical traditions and boarders of perception from whence things emerge out of creative potentiality into a new expression of existence.
The use of colour in the painting for me, is vital to the sense of presence and energy that is discovered or revealed through the process of creating each painting. It provides a source of atmosphere and links each work with my current ideas which are sometimes visual, sometimes historical, philosophical, poetic, musical, intuitive, perceptual or experimental or combinations of these.
I work on paintings in groups and find this an energizing and dynamic process whereby there is a constant discovery of new visual aspects in the relationships between them. Each group of work is a new journey and each painting a new kind of sensitivity and living energy to be realised. Through the process of constant reviewing and reflection the paintings are worked towards the realisation of a sense of connectedness that links them with contemporary life, cultural histories, art practices and symbologies.
STUDIED
1978-81 BA Hons Painting, St Martins School of Art
1981-82 MA Painting Chelsea School of Art
1982-83 Junior Fellowship Cardiff School of Art S.G.I.H.E.
AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS
1989-93 Digswell Arts Fellow
1988 Villers David Foundation Award - Italy
1988 Hertfordshire Artist in Schools Project
1987 ‘In the Making’ Herts Open (Prize-winner)
1986 Hertfordshire Artist in Schools Mural Project
1984 “ “ “ Project
1985 Eastern Arts Grant
1983 Young Artists Grant, Welsh Arts Council
1983 Boise Travelling Scholarship - USA
LECTURING
1983-2007 Senior Lecturer at Chelsea College of Art & Design
1996-97 Visiting lecturer Nottingham Trent Fine Art
1986-96Visiting Lecturer at University of Hertfordshire/St Albans School of Art & Design
1984-86 Visiting Lecturer at Leicester School of Art
1983 - 2000 Lecture/teaching visits to many UK art schools
1982-83 Junior Fellowship Cardiff
WORK IN COLLECTIONS
Komechak Art Gallery Chicargo USA
Priseman Seabrook Collection UK
Falmouth Art Gallery UK
Swindon Museum & Art Gallery UK
East Contemporary Art, University Campus Suffolk UK
Rugby Art Gallery & Museum UK
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria UK
FUTURE EXHIBITIONS
2020 - Murmurs from the Wide River - travelling Solo exhibition :-
Quay Arts Centre, Newport, Isle of Wight
The New Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk
2019 Nov - Quay Arts Open, Newport, Isle of Wight
Oct -Nov - 'Mountan Size', Black Pineapple Contemporary Art Space, Middlesborough
RECENT EXHIBITIONS
2019 - October - Freya Purdue Solo Show, Yellow Edge Gallery, Gosport
AEB Cambridge Open
New Painting, Norwich Cathedral Hostry
'Point of View' Randan Stables Gallery, Hay on Wye
'Made in Britain', Priseman Seabrook Collection, National Gallery of Poland, Gdansk
‘Ennui’ Paintings by Freya Purdue & Marius von Brasch, APT Gallery, London
Contemporaty British Painting, an exhibition of 34 painters, Hostry Norwich Cathedral
2018 - New Painting, St Marylebone Crypt Gallery, London
50 Under 50 Unit 6, Gallery, Richmond, Nort Yorkshire
2017 - China: Priseman Seabrook Collection touring exhibition Sept - Dec
Jiangsu Arts and Crafts Museum, Nanjing
Artall, Nanjing, Jinagsu Province
Tianjing Academy Fine Arts Museum
Female Abstraction: A Celebration of Female British Contemporary Painters, Sticks Gallery, Gosport
Testcard P: Contemporary British Painting: St Marylebone Crypt Gallery, London Sept - Jan
July - China: Priseman Seabrook Collection touring exhibition, Yantai Art Museum, China
July - Open Studios, Isle of Wight
July - Anything Goes? Bermondsey Project Space, London
June - Paintings in Hospitals, CBP show, Menier Gallery, London
May - June - Contemporary Masters from the East of England, The Cut, Halesworth
April - Colour a Kind of Bliss, Curated by Freya Purdue and Lucy Cox, Marylebone Church Crypt Gallery, London
2016
Dec - Jan 17 - 30 x 30 x 34, Marylebone Crypt Gallery, London
August - October Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, 40 Painters, Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight (Curator)
2015
Nov - Jan 2016 - Contemporary British Painters, 34 leading British painters, St Marylebone Church Crypt, London
Sept - Oct - SE9 Container Gallery London
April - Stations of the Cross, Brentwood Cathedral
2014
Dec - Contemporary British Painters Group Exhibition, St Marylebone Church Crypt, London
Nov - @paintbritain 45 Contemporary Painters, Ipswich Art School Gallery, Ipswich
Nov - Contemporary British Painting, Priseman-Seabrook Collection, Huddersfield Art Gallerly
Nov - Freya Purdue ‘Shrine Paintings’, (solo show) St Marylebone Church Crypt Gallery, London
May - Freya Purdue Paintings 2 (solo show) - Letchworth Arts Centre
Feb - Swindon Museum & Art Gallery - Abstract Painting
2013
Dec - Scope, Miami Beach, International Contemporary Art Show
Nov/Dec - Contemporary British Painters(group show)
Sep/Oct - East Contemporary Art (collection 21st Centurary Practice) University Campus Suffolk
2012
Studio Exhibition
2011
'One Year' (solo exhibition), Letchworth Arts Centre
2010
Harmony, Ratio and the Cosmos, Yarrow Gallery, Oundle International Festival
2009
UWE Gallery ‘Time and Being’ (curated research exhibition)
2005
Rural/Central, London College 2005of Fashion Gallery
2002
Through the Surface, Galeria Stara Bwa, Lublin, Poland
1999
Heffers Gallery Cambridge
1998
Charles Barker ArtNet London
1997
Business Link ArtNet London
1996
Open Studios Letchworth Garden City
1994
Open Studios Letchworth Garden City
Coventry Gallery, London
‘Contemporary Women Artists’ in Collaboration with W.A.S.L.Coventry Gallery. London
‘Reclaiming the MADONNA’ (Arts Council Travelling Exhibition - The Economist Tower, Ucheldre Centre Anglesey, St David’s Hall Cardiff
1993
‘Reclaiming the MADONNA’ Usher Gallery Lincoln
Installation of Paintings, New Barnfield Public Library
Group Show Chelsea
Digswell Arts Exhibition
1992
New Work, Crypt Gallery London
Recent Works on Paper, Margaret Harvey Gallery
Digswell Arts Exhibition
1991
‘Empyrean’ (Travelling exhibition in India) Vimonisha Gallery
Madras, Sir J.J. School of Art
Bombay Artists Centre
L.T.G. Gallery New Delhi
Drawing Exhibition Margaret Harvey Gallery
1990
Digswell Arts Exhibition
Pyramid Gallery London
‘New Directions’ Maltings Gallery St Albans
Digswell Arts Exhibition
1989
Digswell Arts Exhibition
1988
Death: A Contemporary Vision, Kettles Yard Cambridge
Creaser Gallery London Summer Exhibition
1987
Ways of Seeing’ travelling exhibition Wales
Young staff exhibition Chelsea S.O.A.
1986
‘In the Making’ Herts Open (Prize-winner)
Leicestershire Exhibition
Visual Arts Collective Luton
1985
'Pacesetters V' Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery
Young Artists II Newcastle Polytechnic Gallery
‘Artmarket’ Contemporary Arts Society
’10 Artists’ St Martins School of Art
1984
‘Underwater’ Plymouth Arts Centre
‘Drawings for All’ Gainsborough’s House Sudbury
Industrial Sponsors Warwick Arts Trust
New Work Chelsea School of Art
Artists at Work Milton Keynes Exhibition Gallery
1983
'Stroke, Line & Figure' Gimple Fils London
'Voices of Awen', Fellowship exhibition, Cardiff School of Art
Painting 83 Warwick Arts Trust
1982
'Christies Inaugural' 1982 London
'East Anglian Artists' Kettles Yard Cambridge
'MA Drawings' Chapter 2 Gallery London
'The Art of Giving' Oriel Gallery Cardiff
1981
‘5 Young Artists Margaret Harvey Gallery
BIBLOGRABPHY
2017 Contemporary Masters from the East of England, ISBN 9781541144057
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, ISBN 9781543281620
2016 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition (Author) ISBN 9781534870123
2015 Priseman Seabrook Collection of 21st Century British Painting, catalogue,
ISBN 9781505537239
2014 @PaintBritain catalogue, ISBN 9781503342156
2014 - Newpaintings 2, catalogue
2011 - ‘One Year’ catalogue
2002 10th Nov - Through the Surface Catalogue – ISBN83-88711-31-38 Lublin, Poland
1991 29th March - Bhoosha, Evening News (New Delhi) ‘Lyrical Forms’
1991 5th April - The Economic Times New Delhi ‘Abstract Shailija Nair, Creations of Harmony’
1991 27th February - Independent Bombay ‘Mystic Abstracts’
1984 29th August - John Olney, Guardian
1984 24th July - Waldermer Januszczak, Guardian ‘Underwater’
1983 Issue No.44 - Robert Ayers Artscibe ‘Painting 83’
1983 October - Clare Rowe, Aspects ‘Voices of Awen’
1983/84 Winter - Steve Nelson, Link Magazine ‘Voices of Awen’
1982 September - Eastword ‘East Anglian Artists’