Frea Buckler
Frea studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in London. More recently she passed her Masters degree with Distinction at UWE in Bristol, where she continues to live and work.
Frea is a multi-disciplinary artist employing her freestyle methodology in sculpture, wallpainting and screenprint. She has rejected the digital and makes everything by hand, to get as close to the process as possible. She predominantly uses screenprint as a tool for drawing to produce series of one off printed works on paper. This process, which she begins without preliminary drawings is paradoxically methodical, systematic and precise and therefore embraces a balance between chaos and control, knowing and not knowing. She applies this approach to her sculptural and installation works, embracing the possibility of imminent failure and adaptation, always responding to what has gone before. She plays with the contrast of certainty and contradiction, knowing and ambiguity, perfection and imperfection in the making and outcomes of the works.
Her bold, abstract geometric works suggest probable but impossible forms resembling unfolded boxes or origami – bending, folding and opening out in different directions. They play with illusion and perception, they fit and don’t fit, there are loose ends and spaces in between. The works are rhythmic, exploring sensations of loud and quiet, fast and slow. They are built from modular elements, shapes collected from found forms, objects used to demarcate, barricade and build. They are intended as visual representations of our processes, emotions and behaviours, such as flow, poise and balance, rather than objects.
She has exhibited nationally including being selected twice for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and a solo show at Jealous Gallery, London, curated by Smithson Gallery. She has worked on a large commission for Facebook and other public art projects.