25/02/2023
Rose Freymuth-Frazier (American, born 1977)
Weightless, 2020
Oil on panel
24 × 18 in (61 × 45.7 cm)
Private collection
Rose Freymuth-Frazier was born and raised in Nevada City, California. She attended Interlochen Arts Academy. Upon graduation she was awarded a scholarship to study theatre at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. She studied also for 2 years at the Art Students League in New York. After taking a master class at the New York Academy of Art with Steven Assael, she continued her studies in a tradition common to painters of the past, through full-time apprenticeship. Her first apprenticeship was for two years under Assael in his New York City studio and her second was with Odd Nerdrum in Norway, at his farm and studio on the North Sea.
References from a broad swath of art history can be found in Freymuth-Frazier’s solitary subjects. Influences range from Balthus’s discomforting depictions of preadolescence, and the queen of Kitsch, Margaret Keane’s “Big Eyed” children and animals, to the heavy chiaroscuro and technical rigor of Caravaggio and Rembrandt. This unique combination of classicism and pulp results in something of a hybrid between Lowbrow esthetic and Old Master technique.
Cultural references spanning 2000 years can be found in Freymuth-Frazier’s work. Inspiration is drawn from the intimacy of friends and family to the detachment of Eastern European p**n sites, stock photography and advertisements. Using a complex language of symbolism like that found in medieval religious icons or the Unicorn Tapestries, the paintings address universal themes such as child development, s*xuality, loss of innocence, consumerism, domestication, gender roles, androgyny and body image in American society today.
Freymuth-Frazier's works are exhibited internationally in galleries and can be found in private collections around the world.
She lives and paints in New York City.