ELYSE HARRISON, Gallery Neptune, 2010
Freya Grand paints the land and the sea like nature’s true confidant. Her paintings rush towards us with immense power portraying earth’s forms whether solid or liquid.
Even the ghosts of her subjects in the distance are mighty in their placement, like veiled sentries. Although we are immediately presented with imagery large and strong, the artist takes great care to have us investigate her work slowly and at close range where we examine the spray of water, the arid crumble of rocky terrain, mist as myst and other phenomenon that evaporate and disappear into the unknown.
In the month of March a collection of Freya Grand’s stunning landscapes and seascapes of Ireland, the Galapagos Islands, Peru and Iceland will undoubtedly stir each guest as the walls of Neptune hold her memories of the enigmatic earth.
JORDAN EDWARDS, THE GAZETTE, MARCH 24, 2010
"Dream World: Painter Puts Surreal Spin on Landscapes
Freya Grand has a secret. Near the end of the March 12 Bethesda Art Walk, a few curious fans wander into Gallery Neptune. They're here to gaze at Grand's landscapes. One asks a question about her brushes.
"Do you mean how do I make the fog?" Grand replies with a laugh.
The visitor smiles and nods. Grand explains that the secret is in the texture of the brush. Well-worn brushes help create the strikingly realistic effect. It's a sharp contrast to the creamy colors that make her paintings unique.
"Probably around 2001, I had the realization that the power of nature was the most powerful source of inspiration for me," she recalls. "In landscape, there was an opportunity to bring together my love of the natural world and a way of expressing an internal, emotional landscape." ...
Most of the oil on canvas paintings are huge — some 60 inches wide — and contain visions of places like Scotland and Ecuador. Grand doesn't paint on location. She takes photographs and sketches ideas. By the time she returns home, these images have incubated in her imagination and launch dream-like interpretations of mountains and rocky shores.
"I think that [the abstraction] has to do with the emotional content of the work," she explains. "What I see when I'm standing on a particular ridge triggers something inside me about the relationships of particular shapes that speak. When I start a painting, I begin with the space relationships."
Wisconsin born and educated, Grand moved to Washington, D.C., for a relationship in 1990. It failed, but she found the art community she sought. A mural painting business helped pay the bills until 2005. Now she works about six days a week on her own projects in a D.C. studio.
"The murals were really wonderful work because they allowed me to use my skills as a painter," Grand says. "But later, it became possible to just focus on my studio work, and that's where my heart is."
As she paints, Grand concentrates on color and texture. Her broad brush strokes blend together rich colors that would be bizarre in nature, but are stunning on the clean white walls of Gallery Neptune. This style is what attracted friend and art enthusiast Jason Goscha to the work. In 2007, he showcased several of Grand's paintings in Gallery 211, a space he owns and operates in Baltimore.
"Her landscapes take this broad view," says Goscha. "It's this interesting, ethereal experience..
"I want people to be drawn to the work, but I like it when there's something a little scary in there."
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