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Green Pebble Magazine
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Articles> Tom De Freston
As stressed students hurry among the centenary walls of Christ’s College
in Cambridge and the bell of the old chapel announces Evensong, a half-metre-long
painting awaits completion by the hands of a young artist in his studio.
Tom de Freston, the holder of the 08/09 Levy Plumb Visual Arts Residency,
grasps a tin of bright pink acrylic and spreads the diluted paint onto the
canvas, staining figures throughout his work in a way that is reminiscent
of Jackson Pollock’s dynamic gestures.
From amongst the bright colours and energetic traces of paint, bold characters
stare out at the observer. They are daringly dressed, or perhaps more accurately,
undressed, since most of the figures wear only bright red underwear and
socks, and sport immaculate white masks. Indeed, in Tom’s treatment
of the image of man, he appears to make man the object of an absurd tragedy.
Apart from wanting to capture the viewer’s attention, Tom also attempts
to create a recurrent character in his work that inspires feelings of solemnity,
pity and absurdity, all at the same time. If one asks him; ‘Tom, is
this supposed to be tragic? Or are you just mocking us?’ he answers,
‘Both; they are tragic comic’.
In an interview with Professor Admiral James Face of Cambridge University,
Tom defines tragedy in painting as 'the play between the construction of
an implied ideal and the realisation of its falseness’. When he admires
art’s historical characters, such as David's Napoleon, he says he
is actually smiling at their potential to become ridiculous. He proceeds
to paint them naked, sometimes in erotic positions, confronting their own
solemnity and ridicule in a context where glory appears as the epitome of
the grotesque. Clothing his characters in radioactive pink boxers and red
socks is a very straight, bold and comical way to transform them into the
antithesis of themselves. They become pathetic characters, more suited to
making the viewer revel in their ludicrousness, than to impressing them.
‘That’s just what I want. I wanted the clothes, paradoxically,
to strip the characters of their desire for heroism,’ he says...
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Tom
de Freston’s painting, 'History Painting', is permanently on display
in the Middle Combination Room (MCR) at Christ’s College, Cambridge.
His work can be viewed on Whale
Crow. Natalia de Orellana is an Art History Student, currently completing
her MA at Edinburgh University. Email.
Tom de Freston will have a solo show in January, either in St. Johns Wood or Cork Street, with HRL Contemporary, as well as a show in Genoa in Easter. He is also currently lecturing and supervising for the History of Art department, Cambridge University, and has just been appointed Artist in Residence at The Leys School in Cambridge.
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