They inspire in the reader/viewer the same sense of disquiet and dread and awe – because there is beauty too. It’s like you’ve both breathed in his darkness and made it your own. - (Sir Anthony Sher on House of the Deaf Man)

Obsessed by images of humanity on the very edge of disintegration, Tom de Freston is audacious enough to convey our most haunted fears about a world struggling for survival in the twenty-­‐first century. - (Richard Cork)

The Charnel House is the culmination of Tom de Freston’s recent series of large-­scale paintings, piecing together theatrical fragments of a wider narrative. Horse-­headed figures are the recurrent central characters, appearing in desperate and tortured scenarios, where they precariously grasp at one another, life and death. Relationships shift and change across the canvases as de Freston puppeteers newly challenging contexts.

Intimate interiors and domestic settings replete with uncannily everyday flowers, light bulbs, bathtubs, doorways and windows form flatly painted stages, reminiscent of de Freston’s previous bodies of work. Elsewhere, the beseeching protagonist is contained by a chequerboard stage or mattress if not reappearing in vast sublime landscapes framed by a swirling tempest.

De Freston’s careful balance between thick, frenzied passages of oil and sleek, one-­dimensional blue backgrounds destabilises a secure reading of the work, emphasising the ambitious proportions of this complex mythology which never rests. The Charnel House reaches its expressive pitch with crucifixion scenes and apocalyptic diptychs, massing the cast together in its entirety, recalling the final scene devices of epic literature and playwrights.

The Charnel House is accompanied by a full exhibition catalogue with a foreword by Simon Martin, Head of Collections and Exhibitions, Pallant House, and an essay by Christiana Spens, novelist and PhD candidate, University of St Andrews. Please contact the gallery for more details. There will be an artist talk with Tom de Freston on Tuesday 26th November 2nd October, 7pm.

The Charnel House coincides with Tom de Freston: Paintings After Shakespeare at the Globe, 4th November – 20th December 2013. De Freston was commissioned by The British Shakespeare Association to produce a body of paintings in response to Shakespeare’s plays in 2010. These were unveiled in September 2011 and toured extensively, including a solo exhibition at Pallant House, Chichester and The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Tokyo.

Tom de Freston (born 1983, UK) lives and works in Oxford. De Freston graduated from Cambridge University (MA Cantab History of Art) in 2007 and Leeds Metropolitan University (BA Fine Art) in 2005. Selected solo exhibitions include The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University, Tokyo (2012), On Theatre, Breese Little, London (2012), Shakespeare Paintings, Pallant House, Chichester (2012), The Hatley Residency, The Centre for Recent Drawing, London (2012), On Falling, Breese Little, London (2011), Scavengers: Paintings and Poems in Response to Shakespeare, Cambridge University Shakespeare Conference, Cambridge (2011) and A Brief History of Heroism, Platform 1 Gallery, London (2009). Selected group exhibitions include Manski, Cohen, de Freston, Breese Little (2013) and WEYA – World Event Young Artists, Nottingham (2012). De Freston’s work is featured in international collections including The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, The Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge University, The Public Catalogue Foundation, London and Christ’s College Chapel, Cambridge University. Selected publications include House of the Deaf Man by Andrea Porter and Tom de Freston, Gatehouse Press, 2012, Scavengers: Paintings and Poems in Response to the Plays of Shakespeare by Tom de Freston and Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Cambridge Shakespeare Conference, 2010, and Figuring Out Figurative Art: Contemporary Philosophers on Contemporary Painting, Acumen Publishing, 2014 (forthcoming).

Breese Little Gallery
30b Great Sutton Street
London EC1V ODU United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)79 19416290
josephine@breeselittle.com
www.breeselittle.com

Opening hours
Tuesday - Saturday
From 12pm to 6pm