The Fighter - Damon Freed

The Fighter - Damon FreedThe Fighter Artists Statement I see these works as a metaphor for the Artist in todays times battling the political, economic, and social worlds of the artist, by himself, in this world! Its a fight, always has been, always will be! In creating the first, The Hurricane, of the series, I sat in my studio chair wondering what a mans expression would be amidst the pandemic at its height. What does a Man, have to say only a man. Exclusively, a man. So, my

The Fighter Ð ArtistÕs Statement

I see these works as a metaphor for the Artist in todayÕs times Ð battling the political, economic, and social worlds of the artist, by himself, in this world! ItÕs a fight, always has been, always will be! In creating the first, ÒThe Hurricane,Ó of the series, I sat in my studio chair wondering what a manÕs expression would be amidst the pandemic at its height. What does a Man, have to say Ð only a man. Exclusively, a man. So, my mind went to boxingÉ The Fighter, as it was. One whom fights for his family, above all else in this world. The protector, the fighter, the seemingly bad guy, the good romantic lover, the persona with its fame and folly.

The grittiness of the expressionistic work that followed was in the form of oil on canvas mostly, with acrylic integrated throughout. The brightness of the acrylics allowed for the density of the oil paints, but it all started with a basic and affordable latex stage paint in matte, the only black I had left at the time! So, they were, each one, drawn out of me with a rich matte black latex paint, for starters. Which, in some ways, has its own history as fundamentally tied to those artists, mostly the Abstract Expressionists, who would paint with what they had, or could find cost-effective in the beginnings of their adventurous forays!

There I was, armed with an inspiration and idea, a question and a subject matter, and my paints of a limited palette. Reds, Yellows, and Blues primarily, as I was utilizing my black to draw it out of me, my subjects, and white by way of the primed canvas itself, mostly! What is left, is a foray into the ideal subject of mine Ð the artist as Boxer! A technician of form. A technician of feelings. A technician, at his bestÉ of expertise in subject matter meeting his forms driven by meaning into the abstraction of life upon canvases both crude and raw, felt and experienced, technical but not too much so that spontaneity loses out. These paintings are supposed to feel fresh with bravado gestures, virtuosic tendency, vibrant with colors, and exploding with pain! The struggle is here in these works Ð the wilding, the rawness Ð but also a refined mental understanding of form as it is inextricably tied to a keen self-awareness of mental fortitude, I hope!