Ruth Freeman

Artist Biography

Ruth Freeman (b. 1969, Oklahoma) is a Brooklyn-based painter who practiced architecture for over ten years in San Francisco. Freeman received both a Bachelors of Architecture degree and Bachelors of Interior Design from the University of Oklahoma, as well as her MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Freeman’s paintings sandwich physical and digital drawing layers together. Incorporating a similar process that explores the effects of digital tools on the perception of our built environment. Utilizing the same obsessive process of perfection and detail that parallels digital functions we use on a daily basis. By emulating the computer through physical gesture, time simulation, and application of bright colors she places herself in a strategic position to differentiate between the virtual world and reality. In doing so, her paintings create an intended abstracted awkwardness.

Freeman’s work has been involved in exhibitions around the world including San Francisco, CA, Oakland, CA, Pacifica, CA, New York, NY, Brooklyn, NY, Tilburg, Netherlands, and London, UK. She has won awards and residencies such as The Wassaic Artist Residency, Wassaic, NY and an Artist Grant from the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT. Her work is published in New American Paintings, ARTMAZE, New American Paintings Northeast Issue, and The Studio Work Blog to name a few.

Artist Statement

“My work is meant to express a visual, abstracted awkwardness. A quirkiness that has haphazardly infiltrated our everyday visualization, discernible in everything from motion pictures and cartoons to our built environment. This awkwardness originates from an unrelenting need to achieve highly realistic imagery through digital mapping, lighting, and animation. Ironically, these motivations have created a strange new visual reality, one whose hyper-realistic nature leaves less room for the imagination. My paintings play on these ideas and glitches, utilizing the same physically obsessive processes to create perfection as in the digital functions we use on a daily basis. By emulating the computer through physical gesture, time simulation, and application of bright colors similar to those of backlit screens, I place myself in a strategic position to differentiate between the virtual and the real. The physical process acts as a guarantee of bodily presence in the paintings.”

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