philip frey

philip freyMoment[um]

August 10 – september 4, 2020

essay by Annaliese Jakimides

6 court street ellsworth, maine 04605 courthousegallery.com 207 667 6611

Dancing Poppies, 2020, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inchescover Luminous Harbor, 2020, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches

Peaceful Expanse, 2020, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches

Philip Frey is a teller of the story of place. He’s imprinted with it—not merely physical place but something more akin to its interiority and the energy that illuminates it. And so, therefore, are his paintings, whether they be of docks and boats, landscapes, living rooms and staircases, or flowers from his meticulously tended garden. Moment[um] allows us to wander through a deep Frey world. Open and timeless.

Grounded in draftsman-like skill and moved by what he describes as the inventive, playful vision of Matisse, Bonnard, Howard Hodgkin, Tom Thompson, aspects of Picasso, and Connie Hayes’s early work, Frey plays on the edge of abstraction. These days, he’s also exploring how far he can push that abstraction and still have it read as cloud or ocean, chair, sky, petal.

Balance fairly vibrates with story, sheer gesture of landscape pulling us in. Everything is brushstroke angling

PhiliP frey MoMEnt[uM]by Annaliese Jakimides

Balance, 2020, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Luminous Harbor, 2020, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches

moment—present momentum—strength

emotion. A hint of precariousness, just by the mere tilt of what I read as ledge and land, uncertainty. The run of greens that border the left and right. The bubbling of light in the clouds. And then that opening of sky exposes the possibility of something more, something deeper if you dare to enter.

Frey always reminds the viewer that there is a brush and a stroke, human energy, embedded in the painting, that the maker is here—but not here. When he talks about the work, he notes the obscurity of his presence, the sense that the painting just is, but then there it is, that move-ment—that laying down.

Color (demanding, sometimes surprising) and light (joyful, alive) continue to be his primary characters. But the “changingness” quality of place is what he most wants to capture—bringing the lived experience at the intersec-tion of time and place to a painting, and subsequently to the viewer.

In Watch Where You Step, we witness Frey as subtle guide, his ricocheting angles, unyielding colors, bold lines driving us not just down a staircase, with a large fuchsia ball at the bottom, but also transitioning us to the lip of inner and outer world—and the unknown. All his paint-ings have openings, and all his interiors have a view of the world outside—always in morning or evening, a time he

favors because, he says, “the middle of the day steals the real light.” Watch where you step but please step. Don’t miss a single thing. Pay attention. Be present.

Two easily overlooked pivot points in Frey’s evolution have enabled him to become a painter with a remarkable “voice” you would know anywhere—much like the open-ing chords of a Herbie Hancock composition or the first lines of a Yusef Komunyakaa poem.

We are, for the most part, rooters or movers. Frey is a rooter who grew up in a mover family. Fortunately, for him and us, his family did significant stints in coastal, working-waterfront communities—one in Massachusetts and the other in Maine, where he remained even as his mover family relocated and relocated and relocated. Years ago, when an acupuncturist described him as rootless, he recognized something significant in the word and image, and began his exploration of rootedness and, with that, Buddhist meditation—both of which, it would seem, contribute to the palpable, energetic tranquility his paintings convey.

In the ensuing years, he explored, walked, hiked, and painted his downeast world—with watercolors and acryl-ics. Then one day, in the Colby Museum of Art (not his first time there nor his last), he was struck by the buttery lusciousness, the thick juiciness, of an oil painting in front of him. Obviously not his first sighting of oils—but this

Watch Where You Step, 2020, oil on canvas, 10 x 8 inches View of a Room, 2020, oil on canvas, 10 x 8 inches

Meander, 2020, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

time he was overcome by the “aliveness.” Hence his transition to oils ten years ago.

These coronavirus times have found Frey inside, a lot, in his recently renovated studio, the sound of classical, jazz, or techno following the rise and fall of his energy throughout the day. Often he works from thumbnail sketches made with graphite or grey-scale markers, creating value studies, translating the light he carries from a particular moment, marking and pushing and moving paint, layering the old and the new. What surprises him most, so many paintings later, are still the mark making and color. Both are undeniably muscular and bold and Frey.

Annaliese Jakimides writes about the arts and life. Her work

appears in magazines, journals, and anthologies, and has been

broadcast on nPR. Most recently, she was cited as a finalist for

the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize, judged by Reginald Dwayne Betts.

Violet and Viridian tango, 2019, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches

Jubilation, 2020, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches

Melting Patterns, 2020, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches Ready For Anything, 2020, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches

Spacious Skies, 2020, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inchesLiquids and Solids, 2020, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches

Vast View, 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

on Balance, 2020, oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches

Emerging Patterns Study, 2020, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Coastal Connections, 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches Emerging Patterns, 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

Surf and Stone, 2020, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches

Blue Iris, 2020, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Cute Cottage, 2019, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Wonsqueak Piers, 2020, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Summer Cottage, 2020, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Wild Violets, 2020, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches

the Greenness of Green, 2020, oil on canvas, 9 x 12 inches

Equanimity, 2020, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Luminous Harbor Study, 2020, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Boathouse Blues and Greens, 2019, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Elemental Schoodic, 2020, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Hope, 2020, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches

Approaching Rain, Deep Waters, 2020, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inchesDeparting Rain, Deep Waters, 2020, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches

philip frey

bOrN 1967, portland, maine

sOlO eXhibitiONsCourthouse gallery fine Art, ellsworth, me 2009, 2011, ’13, ’14, ’16, ’18,’19, 2020george marshall store gallery, york, me 2019 edgewater gallery, middlebury, Vt 2018Carver hill gallery, rockland, me 2017university of maine museum of Art, bangor, me 2016maine Art gallery, Kennebunk, me 2015gleason fine Art, boothbay harbor, me 2012

seleCteD grOup eXhibitiONsCourthouse gallery fine Art, ellsworth, me 2006–2020greenhut galleries, portland, me 2001–2004, ’14, ’16, ’17, ’18, 2020maine Art gallery, Kennebunk, me 2008–2018edgewater gallery, middlebury, Vt 2017–2020thos. moser, freeport, me 2008, 2016, 2017penobscot marine museum, (juried), searsport, me 2004, 2016gleason fine Art, boothbay harbor, me 2010–2016bert gallery, providence, ri 2014university of maine, lord hall gallery, Orono, me 2010the firehouse gallery, Damariscotta, me 2003–2009shaw Jewelry, Northeast harbor, me 2001–2008Élan fine Art, (juried) rockport, me 2007george marshall store gallery, me 2006target gallery, (juried), Alexandria, VA 2003

Clark house gallery, bangor, me 1998, ’99, 2000, ’01Argosy gallery, bar harbor, me 1997, 98, ’99, 2000mcgrath Dunham gallery, Castine, me 1996, ’97, 98, ’99, 2000between the muse gallery, rockland, me 1997spring street gallery, belfast, me 1997June fitzpatrick gallery, portland, me 1996frick gallery, belfast, me 1994

seleCteD COrpOrAte COlleCtiONsAcorn Capitol management, pACompany C, NhDick Wolf films, Dick Wolf, CA

AWArDsCastine plein Air festival, first place Award, Castine, maine 2014heliker-lahotan foundation residency, great Cranberry island 2012good idea grant, maine Arts Commission 2004

seleCteD bibliOgrAphyKany, Daniel, and Carl little. Philip Frey: Here and now. marshall Wilkes, 2018. little, Carl, and David little. Paintings of Portland. Down east books, 2018. little, Carl, and David little. Art of Acadia. Down east books, 2016.Kany, Daniel. “greenhut’s biennial ‘portland show’ sets a standard.” Portland Press Herald, 2016.burnham, emily. “finding solace in landscape.” Bangor Daily news, 2016Kinghorn, george. “regionalism and Contemporary Artists in maine: Opportunities and Challenges.” Maine Policy Review 24.1, 2015.Kadour, ric Kasini. “philip frey: lavish Attention,” exhibition catalog. maine Art gallery. 2015.Gettysburg Review, fall 2012.little, Carl. “philip frey: in the moment.” Art new England, 2014Kany, Daniel. “the Cultural space of painting,” exhibition catalog. Courthouse gallery fine Art, 2014.little, Carl. “fresh Ways,” exhibition catalog. Courthouse gallery fine Art. 2011.mcAvoy, suzette, “the Canvas.” Maine Home+Design, 2010. Maine Home+Design, “One’s to Watch.” 2009.Maine Home+Design, “extraordinary Artists Whose Work reflects maine’s timeless mystique.” 2008.Carl little, Arnold skolnick. Paintings of Maine: A new Collection. Down east books, 2006.Carl little, Arnold skolnick. the Art of Monhegan Island. Down east books, 2004.

eDuCAtiONbfA (painting) Cum laude, syracuse university, Ny 1990Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, Oh 1986–1988

6 court street ellsworth, maine 04605 courthousegallery.com 207 667 6611

Sea of Solitude, 2020, oil on panel, 9 x 12 inches