In Search of The Miraculous
Escat Gallery, Barcelona
March - May 2025
The title for the exhibition is borrowed from the book 'In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching' by Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky, published in 1949, which recounts his meeting and subsequent association with George Gurdjieff and the esoteric teaching that Gurdjieff imparted to him. I have been reading the book and practicing the profound teaching within it throughout the creation of this body of work. The experience has, at times, felt miraculous.
One of Gurdjieff's principal teachings is focused on the alchemical process of making a connection between one's body and higher energies. These paintings were born out of my daily practice of meditation and 'self remembering, which is at times difficult and other times rich and deep. Often during meditation or in these moments of self remembering I feel a pulsating energy, emanating both from within and from beyond my body.
The background area of each painting is achieved slowly, over many layers of transparent oil paint, so that the surface feels resonant and alive. The brushstrokes are applied rhythmically, first vertically then horizontally then vertically again. The process is calm and reflective. The large brushstrokes on the surface arrive from a very different process. I use one of the giant paint brushes that I make myself using natural hair, bound to long broom-like handles.
Although these marks are made rapidly, they come from deep stillness. Before each stroke I meditate for at least 30 minutes, often longer. I wait for the energy to 'arrive' and as soon as it is there l act quickly, without thought. Ideally the marks arrive like lightning, and I have little to do with them.
The Fallen Tree
Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg
May - June 2024
This exhibition, curated by Odysseus Shirindza, collects a body of work made during a 7-month residency with the Hugo Burge Foundation in Scotland, where I occupied the former studio and cottage of renowned artist and musician, the late Rory McEwen. The work was presented in conversation with a masterpiece by Jackson Hlungwani.
During the intensive residency, I was able to dive deeper into an already existing relationship with nature. The paintings harnessed their colours from the late autumnal blaze as he began the residency in 2023, each day introducing a new colour into my palette. Not long after I arrived I began incorporating wood carving into my practice. I was gifted a century-old Cedar tree which fell during storm Arwen (November 2021) on the Marchmont Estate nearby the studio and set about carving it in sections with a chainsaw, grinder and various hand tools. The surface of the wood was then charred and finally finished with beeswax.
“Much of my work comes from an urge to immerse myself in a devotional relationship with nature. To bow at her feet. Making this work has taken me into a kind of quietly ecstatic state at times, amplified by the silence of long periods of being completely alone which this residency allowed. The work comes from a space of inner contemplation and deep immersion in nature. I am trying to make a link between higher energies and my body. I want the things I make to speak this language, to resonate as much as possible with this awareness.”
Hugo Burge Foundation, Residency
Through the winter of 2023/24 I worked in a remote, rural studio cottage in the Scottish Borders, formerly owned by the late, great artist and musician, Rory McEwen.
One of the reasons I began searching for a studio in the countryside, which ultimately led me to this residency with The Hugo Burge Foundation was to be in direct, daily contact with nature, to find a connection with silence and to have an intensely solitary experience surrounding my practice. Enveloped by this silence I have found life there equally magical and difficult. New ways of working emerged and a new and wonderful language for me, carving wood. Drawing returned to the centre my life, bringing an energy of its own. After a strange and difficult alienation I rediscovered my joy for painting too.
Not all of it was easy, and yet as I emerged from the 7 months there I’m certain that the most constant of all the feelings was Joy. A joy that came from feeling my body respond to the delicate awe of being connected to nature, being woven into the substance of these fields, rivers, trees.
The works made during the residency were presented at Gallery MOMO in Johannesburg, and at Bard in Edinburgh.
Spirit Matter, Nirox Foundation
Nirox Foundation, Cradle of Humankind
November 2022 - January 2023
The exhibition with The Nirox Foundation presents a range of paintings made during my residency at NIROX, July & August 2022. With the Spirit Matter series, I am painting in reverse. The canvas is dyed with a dark black or indigo. I then begin bleaching parts of the surface to reveal lighter areas. The process happens slowly, in many layers, as I attempt to encourage an ethereal light into the artwork. The result is hopefully very open and suggestive of a numinous experience. The paintings are not depictions of Spirit, how can one paint the invisible? Rather, they are an evocation, an echo, a vapour. They point towards a presence you catch out of the corner of your eye, just before it slips away.
Spirit Matter, Gallery MOMO
Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg
November 2022
These works were made in my Edinburgh studio and then during a residency at the Nirox Foundation in the Cradle of Humankind in July and August, 2022. The incredible space at Nirox opened new possibilities in the work, both in technique and scale. The paintings appear simultaneously as portals and as veils and come from an instinct for a kind of light that I have felt all of my life.
Temple of Flora
Steel, aluminium, perspex, glass, plants, plant essential oil, paint, soil, LED light, wood
260 x 420 x 260 cm
With thanks to Frazer Parfum and the British Library Sound Archive, London.
Commissioned by Standard Bank Gallery for their exhibition, ‘Exact Imagination, 300 years of botanically inspired art in South Africa’, the Temple of Flora presents a conversation between essence and form. The artwork itself represents my ongoing fascination with alchemy and a pursuit of essence. The Temple of Flora is intended as an ambiguous space – part greenhouse, part secular sacred space, part alchemical laboratory.
The Temple’s aesthetic based entirely on the Golden Ratio - as found in many temples, cathedrals and occult structures as well as throughout the natural world, growth patterns and the human form. The external perimeter of the Temple forms a Golden rectangle and standing inside the Temple is to stand within a Golden rectangle in 3d. Inside the Temple is a shelf. The shelf is divided into 5 areas, each corresponding with one of the five Platonic Solids, each paired with a separate plant. All the plants are commonly found growing in South Africa.
A Mountain is Harder to Climb than you Think
In November 2021, I undertook my most arduous challenge to date. I carried three stone sculptures, their plinths, three paintings and a mobile studio, on his back up to the remote ‘Bone Caves’ in the far north of Scotland. I set up a studio and completed the paintings in the cave, camping overnight. I was joined by a small film crew and my two sons. The first iteration of the exhibition took place in the cave, the morning after his ascent.
The second iteration presented the completed artworks, accompanied by the film documenting the experience was hosted by LTD Ink Corporation and presented by The Rafiki Gallery. April, 2022.
Time Travel
Solo exhibition at SpaceBY, a platform curated by The Fourth Gallery, Cape Town. Channelling Giotto, Aceton, Artiemis, birdsong and the space-time continuum. December 2021
Der Heilige Berg
Gallery MOMO
Cape Town and Johannesburg.
A body of work centred on a mountain in the Scottish Highlands. The works were completed on residency at The Nirox Foundation near Johannesburg.
"The artist channeled exactly this mountain impulse into the work – collectively entitled ’Der Heilige Berg’ (’The Holy Mountain’). Freemantle found the Scottish mountains after being directed by Richard Demarco; and as it turns out, so did Joseph Beuys in the 70s, who declared it ’the last remaining wilderness in Northern Europe’ (images of Beuys on Rannoch Moor are incorporated into the show). The mountains, now on canvas, are painted from rocks, ochres and slates gathered from two of the ranges he’s spent time in. Freemantle would methodically grind these materials down into powder and then mix them with beeswax, turpentine, linseed oil and Damar resin. Thus, the paintings are the mountain."