Article in TCS, October 2008.
Forgiveness and forgetfulness according to De Freston
“Between somewhere and Nowhere” Works by Tom de Freston at the Cast Gallery, Museum of Classical Archaeology
Pablo de Gandia
If art is the exploration of humanity at its best, worst and most intimate, then Tom de Freston is definitely exploring human despair for regeneration. To forget, the cleansing experience of Lethe and of course the free-fall of experience and fear.
Icarus II is every man, the fall from grace into the reality of life, the experience of pain and discovery, illuminated within the darkness of the world. Indeed the heroic pilgrims of de Freston’s work are excerpts and metaphors for humanity. Dramatic movement is the key to the expression of experience in his work. Figures fall, swim and shift through the almost rigid settings that frame them, opening the discourse of the inevitable dichotomy between humanity, immersed in the unpredictable sea of feeling and experience, and the seemingly rigid, orderly and predictable setting of life.
But the show is hardly a helpless cry of despair. Ironic cracks in the drowning and falling have left some hope to the viewer; Venus makes shy apparitions that could remind us of Adam’s truth: a man’s salvation from tragic ecstasy might well be found in womanhood.
De Freston poses an intricate, (though incredibly plain and instinctive) interplay of gestual symbolism and human desire with the theatrical performance of society, but he can afford to explore it. For not only his painting is thorough and technically refined, but he also seems to possess a fine perception of composition, both conceptual and spatial. This enables him to coherently place his lonely heroes in a context that succeeds perfectly in conveying the pathetic grandeur of the fall of mankind. Well used geometric spatiality leaves room for almost conceptual composition, which considering the skilful and innovative use of glosses, greatly enrich the works once the juxtaposition is achieved.
This exhibition brings to us a striking collection of “moments” from the history of our own feeling and experience; the foolish and pathetic tragedy of every lonely pilgrim. From The Calm Climber of TESCO’s falling to the suffocated cry of Swimmer of Lethe, the pathos of each moment is clearly challenged and explored with sincerity and sense of humour. I heartily recommend this show. Amongst the pale plasters of Classic glories de Freston’s works have much to say about the ongoing mystery of existing.
