Sir Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Nunn- September 2011 Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev… Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter… Millais, Burne-Jones, artists of every discipline have given us their ‘take’ on Shakespeare; illustrators have imagined his characters and most famous scenes, film directors have made their screen adaptations, novelists have written works loosely based on the stories of his plays, and especially in the last … Continue reading
Dr. Abigail Rokison
Abigail Rokison- September 2011 As I recall, the seeds of this project were sown in a supervision between myself and Kiran – we had almost certainly become side-tracked from matters academic. I mentioned the planned Cambridge Shakespeare Conference – ‘Shakespeare: Sources and Adaptation’, and she told me about her work with Tom, creating paintings and poems, some inspired by Renaissance … Continue reading
Rye Holmboe
Rye Holmboe: A Poetics of Dissonance. August 2011. Essay from the exhibition catalogue- ‘On Falling.’ A self-professed ‘contemporary history painter,’ Tom de Freston’s artistic practice could be described as a genuinely dialectical attempt to think our present time in history. Drawing from canonical literary sources like Shakespeare and Milton, and referencing the history of painting more generally, his works reflect … Continue reading
Breese Little
Creating stages for sinister players, Tom de Freston orchestrates violent spectacles undermined by the absurdity of the participating cast. Recent works have drawn on the themes and work of William Shakespeare. The complicated tragedy of the human condition witnessed in King Lear, the fanciful confusion and absurdity of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the murderous Macbeth inform the works chosen … Continue reading
Richard Cork
Review from Richard Cork- August 2011. Published in exhibition catalogue- ‘On Falling’ 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. At the same time, though, he views this present-day crisis through the perspective of Shakespeare’s … Continue reading
Sir Nicholas Serota
Review from Sir Nicholas Serota – Director of The Tate “2010 marked the 500th anniversary of consecration of the Chapel at Christ’s. The anniversary is to be celebrated by the installation of two new site specific altarpiece paintings on the theme of the Deposition made by the young contemporary history painter, Tom de Freston. The paintings have been designed to … Continue reading
The Hon Rowan Williams
Review from The Hon Rowan Williams – Archbishop of Canterbury “The decoration of many Oxbridge college chapels is fairly austere, and Christ’s is no exception. But often it is precisely against a muted and restrained background that an artistic work may speak most eloquently, uncluttered by the merely decorative. That is very clearly what Tom de Freston’s panels achieve in … Continue reading
Revd. Christopher Woods
Commendation from Chaplain of Christ’s College, the Revd Christopher Woods. “Commissioning a new art work for a place of worship is an exciting yet daunting project. It demands preparation, planning and enthusiasm from many parties. The reredos, or altarpiece, which Tom de Freston has been working on for some time, in various guises, is a stark, dramatic and disturbing fruit of talent, passion and labour … Continue reading
Graham Howes
FROM SEEING TO BELIEVING ? - GRAHAM HOWES ‘Can then our college chapels be made still more useful for the spiritual advancement of ourselves and our pupils ?’ asked the Reverend C.A.Swanson,Fellow and Tutor of Christs in 1850. “Although posed over a hundred and sixty years ago (as part of an eccentric and intemperate attack on Great St Mary’s,the University Church,as … Continue reading
Jaya Savige
“The Seat of Desolation”: Miltonic depth in the work of Tom de Freston Jaya Savige “[N]ot, please! to resemble The beasts who repeat themselves,.. “ W.H. Auden, In Praise of Limestone. ~ From an elevated perspective, the figures in Tom de Freston’s The Fall of the Rebel Angels might be laid out on a conveyer-belt, ferried like homogenised, factory-produced bodies … Continue reading
Caitlin Doherty- The Tab
CATASTROPHES Unclassifiable Corpus Playroom, Monday 2nd May, 9pm Collaborative and openly political theatre makes a stimulating change from the usual dominance of Shakespeare, Chekhov and Stoppard in Cambridge. Last night’s performance of Catastrophes ought to be commended for providing student writers with the opportunity to stage their responses to the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, while also raising awareness … Continue reading
Christiana Spens-Studio International
Studio International Cambridge, Easter 2011 by CHRISTIANA SPENS Christ’s College, Cambridge celebrated the 500th anniversary (2010) of its consecration this Easter with the installation of two site-specific altarpiece paintings by the young artist Tom de Freston, who has been the Leverhulme artist in residence there. This is the second major commission of contemporary art by Christ’s College in recent years. … Continue reading
Mike McCahill- Sunday Telegraph
Upon the wall of my bathroom, there hangs a small, 11”-x-10” painting by Tom de Freston, depicting a figure stretched out in a shimmering expanse of water. In the corner of this canvas, there is not the usual artist’s signature, but a printed date that reveals the image has been daubed directly onto a page of the Guardian newspaper (the … Continue reading
Majella Munro – Erotic Review on Exiles
Exiles presents recent works by painter and art historian Tom de Freston. This current exhibition boasts an illustrious and worthy list of supporters, and the work on display is clearly critical and intelligent. Yet it’s also true that sex, melodrama and comedy reoccur in de Freston’s work with frequency and intensity. There’s a gravity to de Freston’s choice of themes … Continue reading
Tab Review- Toby Parker Rees, 2010
The first time I went into Tom de Freston’s studio, I was confronted with a galaxy of arseholes. On canvas, on paper, on the ceiling, arseholes arseholes everywhere. At that time all I knew about Tom was that he was the artist in residence at Christ’s and that he was doing the poster for a production of ‘Macbeth’ I was … Continue reading
Green Pebble – Natalia de Orellana
As stressed students hurry among the centenary walls of Christ’s College in Cambridge and the bell of the old chapel announces Evensong, a half-metre-long painting awaits completion by the hands of a young artist in his studio. Tom de Freston, the holder of the 08/09 Levy Plumb Visual Arts Residency, grasps a tin of bright pink acrylic and spreads the … Continue reading
Corpus- talk by Jennifer Burris
From Anthony Gormley to Marlene Dumas, Matthew Barney to Marc Quinn, representations of the human figure can be found throughout contemporary art. Alternatively understood as an embodiment of the artist, a mirror of the viewer, or a means of exploring identity, the body remains a potent site of aesthetic investigation. It is this word ‘investigation’ that is crucial, for the … Continue reading
Dr. Caroline Vout – A Brief History of Heroism
“One day he started to peel off his clothes. I was horrified to see that he was wearing the full Chelsea gear. It took all of my self-control to stop myself laughing.” Antonia da Sancha on Heritage Secretary, David Mellor, 1992 Performing masculinity It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Each man for himself, all of them facing what our modern … Continue reading
Damien Freeman – Looking, Imagining, Growing
Looking, Imagining, Growing: Engaging with Tom de Freston’s Boxer Shorts That red boxer shorts and socks do just as well as fig leaves for concealing modesty in Tom de Freston’s recent work demonstrates that modesty can also be a source of comedy. Monumental figures and poses, which might otherwise inspire awe, instead elicit a grimace. Perhaps this humour is not … Continue reading
Soul and Spirit according to de Freston- Pablo de Gandia
Spirituality is a fascinating aspect of de Freston’s work that challenges the viewer in its different and often puzzling recurrence. There is in his work an intense dichotomy between the glorious and noble ethereal heroes floating or falling and their almost immediate de-dramatisation through subtle statements on the futility of their positions. De Freston’s pathetic characters fall into the oblivion … Continue reading
Great Works of Art in Cambridge
Art historians are rarely great artists. they are too in awe of their heroes, reduced to culling stylistic tricks from Michelangelo, Titian and Rembrandt. they are stifled by their own erudition, paralysed by a fear that we might mistake them for a garret artist, untutored, a splasher of paint, a follower of instinct. So they pepper their work with ponderous … Continue reading