Freddie Darke

Painting

My 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!
​

Social Networks
​Instagram:@freddie_darke
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/freddiedarke

Visit Website

---

WORKS ON SALE

Title: Lapa (2017) Price: £250 Medium: Mixed materials on canvas Size: 41x27cm Description: This canvas accumulated and lost many layers over several years. It remained completely abstract for most of that time. Then, one day the right set of figures seemed to fit the colours and surface. Although the people and places in my pictures are often ambiguous, this is very much located in Brasil, as the title suggests. Lapa is an area in Rio de Janeiro and the people depicted are street vendors there.

Title: Man and Dog Price: £150 Medium: Mixed materials on wooden board Size: 30x21cm Description: One of a loose series of small collages, made during the first few months of 2020. The character recurs across other works. In the tradition of art history, the dog suggests loyalty and companionship.

Title: Looking Out (Pink Dress) Price: £350 Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 50x40cm Description: The figures were born out of a series of works based around the theme of ‘mother and child’. They went on to feature in an art-residency project called Unsung Odysseys, which took place in Athens, 2019. Much like the description of Lapa, the canvas had gathered many layers over several years and the figures were painted on one day, fairly quickly and unexpectedly.

Title: Dolphins (2) Price: £350 Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 77x61cm Description: The woman holding Dolphin balloons is a recuring image, not only in drawings and paintings but also in an animation piece. Like many of the other works, the canvas has a long history of covered images, resulting in the partly accidental texture of its current state. In regard to context, the piece alludes to the relationship between people, plastic and nature.

Title: Disappearing Act (1) Price: £250 Medium: Paper collage on recycled cork board Size: 57.5x39cm Description: A fairly rare departure from depiction. This could easily have become the background for something figurative. It was an undemanding, child-like process of gluing and sticking, and I was surprisingly pleased with how it suddenly looked finished. Made during the first few months of 2020 after a few weeks out of the studio.

Title: Disappearing Act (2) Price: £250 Medium: Paper collage on recycled cork board Size: 58.5x39cm Description: A rare departure from depiction. This could easily have become the background for something figurative, but I was surprisingly pleased with how it looked as it was. Made during the first few months of 2020 after a few weeks out of the studio.

Title: Washing Line (Lisbon) Price: A3 - £50 A2 - £225 A1 - £400 Medium: Digital collage (handmade line drawing coloured with my own photographic textures) printed on 100% cotton-based fine art paper. Size: Variable Description: One of a small series of Portuguese, city-based scenes.

Title: Buildings (Porto) Price: A3 - £50 A2 - £225 A1 - £400 Medium: Digital collage (handmade line drawing coloured with my own photographic textures) printed on 100% cotton-based fine art paper. Size: Variable Description: One of a small series of Portuguese, city-based scenes.

Title: Re-enactment 1 Price: £300 Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 60x51cm Description: During time spent at the Old School Art Residency in Gorna Lipnitsa, Bulgaria, the children of the village performed the re-enactment of a famous local battle between Bulgarians and Ottoman invaders. The image shows some of the participants shortly before the performance.

Title: Man in Cap Price: £50 – A3 fine art print, hand signed Medium: Pen on paper Size: Variable Description: Ideas for paintings and projects often begin with black and white line drawings on basic printing paper. Sometimes these drawings become works in their own right. For the sake of longevity, I often suggest to buyers a fine art print on archival paper, rather than the original.

watch "Not Quite the Artist’s Statement"

contact Freddie Darke

Email: fd@freddiedarke.com