// I T A M A R F R E E D //
Born in 1987 in Manhattan, Itamar Freed studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design where he received his B.F.A in 2012. His work has since taken him to London where he is now studying at the Royal College of Arts on the photography program. Freed’s work conjoins reality with the artificial. Staged figures create unusual scenes often with an uncomfortable tension lying behind them. There are three main regions of his photographic work taking him from New York in America to London for his studies and the Israeli wilderness where his home studio lies. Freed’s photographic aesthetic takes much of its style from the techniques of historical painters which draws parallels from his photographs to traditional paintings within art history. His use of colour, natural light and composition blur borders between dreams and reality with open compositions. There is often more than one focus point within each image drawing the eye of the observer to range of areas within the compositions.
“Freed’s photographic ambience exists as if in a threshold zone, beyond the bounds of specific time and place. Using the photography medium to preserve, to freeze, to grasp life and seize time.”
“My photographic work draws upon a return to the classic paintings of Art History. Through the use of color, natural illumination at its extremes, open composition and multiple vanishing points that simultaneously draw the observer’s eye to different focal points of various events, the borders between dream and wakening are blurred.”
The image below has a number of focal points within its unusual composition. The woman marks a clear part of the photo and creates her own line of sight following the curvature of her body across each of her limbs. There is a sense of fragility about her with a strong sense of vulnerability at her exposed state. Her head starts in a mess of tangled grass and branches but following along her body you arrive at her feet which are immersed in red and orange flowers. There is something to be said about the inclusion of this section of colour, red itself has multiple symbolic readings from lust and passion to danger and poison. The bird in the background also creates a focal point along with a series of questions. Why is it there? What point is the artist trying to make with its inclusion? The background fades from a dark, almost blackened tone in the background to a lighter mix of greens and browns in the foreground. This image interested me in particular because of its strange combination of focal points within the strange composition. The collective metaphors and symbolism in the image add a mixture of emotions which support this image and its meaning. 