Connie Freedy’s art has been hidden away for many years but it’s now on display at the Mann Art Gallery.
The gallery hosted an opening reception for In Conversation: An Exhibition of Works by Connie Freedy on Saturday. The afternoon featured a discussion between Reedy and show curator Jesse Campbell. Freedy said this is her first show in several years.
“I have had other shows, but then life took over, and work and so on, and then my daughter and I went into a different career with our restaurant,” Freedy said.
“That sort of thing meant that the stuff was hidden away for a long time—for years and years.”
Freedy, who is married to well-known Prince Albert artist George Glenn, also had the show catered by her daughter Heidi O’Brodovich who operated Yellow Fender Coffeehouse and Eatery in Christopher Lake with Freedy.
Campbell also recently curated the Glenn exhibit “Seeing Through Time” which also involved a dive into the archives.
Freedy said it’s probably been about 20 years or so since some of these pieces were shown. She said the show wouldn’t have been possible without Glenn and Campbell, since Campbell’s first show with Glenn led to her second with Freedy.
“It just came about and the show almost made itself,” Campbell said.
Freedy’s artwork has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Her work is represented in the collections of the Saskatchewan Arts Board, Mendel Art Gallery Collection at Remai Modern, Mann Art Gallery and Dunlop Art Gallery
Freedy said her works have their own unique style.
“I’m a painter and it’s not realistic work, but it’s not abstract,” she said. “It’s kind of the way I see things.”
According to the Mann Art Gallery, Freedy’s painting reflects her immense love for the world and the joy found in her surroundings. This exhibition, which includes works from the 1970s to the early 2000s, shows the trajectory of her artistic explorations. In early works, depictions of domestic spaces, landscape, and still life’s are imbued with narrative qualities, drawn from her daily experiences.
Campbell said Glenn was not an influence, but because of his proximity the works have similarities.
“Both (artists) are attuned to everything around them—to constant and deep looking (and) thinking,” Campbell said. “But what I find very interesting is that despite George and Connie’s close life together, they each have their own formidable artistic path.”
With her works coming back into public view, Freedy is thinking about picking up the brush again.
“I’m almost going to register for a workshop which will take me back to getting into working,” she said.
Freedy said she always liked drawing and would send drawings back and forth with her cousin. She then started taking classes in Prince Albert from Glenn and others.
“(I) met other people in the community who were very supportive and very active, and so it just went from there,” Freedy said. “Then when we went to France…. We took our art supplies along and we went on location and did some drawings.”
In 1979 the family moved to the South of France and studied art and art history for a year, which had a profound effect on the works of Freedy.
“It was just such a wonderful time of opening your eyes to another culture that was so ancient,” Freedy said.
Campbell said that curating the works of a husband and wife was mostly happenstance.
“It’s just a year where they come together. The timing worked out that way,” Campbell said.
Freedy said that seeing the work gave her a fresh set of eyes to reflect on making it. She said she remembered creating the works when the family returned from the year in France.
“Right away I just went into it in the studio at the basement of the Daily Herald,” Freedy said.
“Then it just kind of grew from there, and I remember, of course, the experience of being in the studio and doing work, but certain things have been so long ago that I’ve forgotten doing a few of those pieces and it totally surprised me when I saw them again.”
Campbell said the show was wonderful to curate but also a challenge because of the amount of works.
“I think we went through hundreds of works on paper and that’s not an exaggeration,” she explained. “We poured through sketch after sketch, drawing after drawing, painting after painting, so there was such a rich body of work to go from.
“Overall, I was really struck by how prolific Connie has been in her practice and her dedication, but I think that there was evidence of a strong need to simply go to the paper and to the canvas. There’s no nerves about it, there’s no hesitation. It’s an inner drive.”
Campbell said the other challenge in curating the show was that she did not want to make the show overwhelming and show the breadth of the work.
“You come in and you don’t necessarily want to have a preconceived idea of exactly what the show will be,” she said. “You really have to be open to what the work tells you, and so that’s how the exhibition came about.”
Freedy was pleased to have her show on display at the Mann Art Gallery.
“I’m really thrilled to have a show and I think it looks really great in there,” she said. “It was just such a pleasure working with Jesse and the way she hung the show and placed everything just with so much thought. It’s hard to believe that if you really think about it, it just seems so intuitive to you to place things like where you put the black and white pieces.”
Campbell said the work is a collaborative project because a curator does not want to have their own story or agenda.
“It’s about uplifting the artist’s work and how is it best shared with the broader public, and I think that’s been a really important part of this show. Connie has been a significant part of Prince Albert’s arts and art history scene for, gosh, 40 years now, and so it’s really important for us to share that and celebrate it.”
“In Conversation: An Exhibition of Works by Connie Freedy” is curated by Jesse Campbell and runs from April 16 to June 28 in the main gallery. The High School Juried Art Show is on display in the foyer portion of the gallery.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
