Freya Douglas-Morris: This star I give to you

About

Alexander Berggruen is pleased to present Freya Douglas-Morris: This star I give to you. This exhibition will open Wednesday, October 18, 2023 with a 5-7 pm reception at the gallery (1018 Madison Avenue, Floor 3, New York, NY).

Occasionally, a landscape enchants with winding vistas, fragrant aromas, the company of loved ones, and dynamic light and weather conditions. Freya Douglas-Morris captures and enhances the magic of these atmospheres, inviting one to settle down to wonder and rest with her poetic paintings. While her landscapes are often catalyzed by her encounters with real places, they become surreal and inexact as they are transformed by the painter’s memory and imagination. Through her fluid paint application, the artist’s landscapes appear to be internally illuminated, pulsing with resonant rhythmic light. In oil paintings on small framed copper panels to larger canvases, Freya Douglas-Morris: This star I give to you is an affectionate offering of tender sensations of the natural world.

The title of this exhibition arose from a gift given by Douglas-Morris’s sister to the artist’s five-year-old daughter: a star located on a map of the sky. In the winter, when only one star is visible from her daughter’s bedroom window, she asked if that was her star. Though it was unlikely, Douglas-Morris said yes, as, in the artist’s words: “What mattered was that she’d been given the idea of something, something bright, intangible, beautiful. It’s similar to being given a feeling or the recollection of a memory. Paintings can do this too. The mental image remains, leaving the sentiment and memory of that experience.”