Freddie DarkePaintingMy work is rooted in the traditions of image making; figurative painting, drawing, collage and printmaking, though projects and ideas often expand into video, animation, action and intervention.
My images come about through a variety of means; observational drawings, historical footage and photography, memory and imagination. Together these raw elements provide a creative space in which to explore not only visual possibilities, but thoughts and feelings surrounding the naturally recurring themes of my practise: Human journeys and movement, displacement, home, family, strangers, interconnection and inner lives. Figures tend to find their way onto surfaces already dense with a long history of layers or marks, giving these characters a sense of coincidence, a lack of certainty in their surroundings and environment. Traces of the process are often deliberately left, like evidence of a trail of thought, and to avoid anything too ‘finished’ or ‘final’. My natural approach seems to balance playful, innocent mark-making with technical accuracy, sometimes provoking frictions within the subject matter, namely between sweet or cliched images and much harsher realities. I’ll rarely confirm the identity or exact situation of a subject, mostly because I believe it’s important to allow the viewer as much space and freedom for interpretation as possible. The images often exist between lived experience and creative fantasy. Ideally, I’d like to capture a glimpse of the spaces and parallels between things; the past and the present, the familiar and the unknown. My main wish is for the work to be open and highly accessible, as easily intellectualised by an adult as it might be enjoyed on a purely visual and instinctive level by a child. Or vice versa! |
WORKS ON SALE
watch "Not Quite the Artist’s Statement"
contact Freddie Darke
Email: fd@freddiedarke.com