The Linda A. Day Endowed Student Award
Meredith freeman
2022 Linda A. Day Endowed Student Award Recipient
Meredith Freeman is an artist whose practice incorporates drawing, painting, printmaking, and mixed media collaging. She was born and raised in Connecticut and earned her Bachelor degrees from the University of Connecticut in 2013. Degrees earned include a BA in an Individualized Major, titled “ASL, Deaf Culture & Creative Arts Therapy,” a BFA with a concentration in Painting, and a minor in Psychology. She currently resides in Long Beach, where she is pursuing her MFA in Drawing and Painting at California State University Long Beach. She is expected to graduate in Spring 2023.
Meredith has exhibited in solo and groups shows throughout Connecticut since she was in high school, and more recently has expanded into other parts of New England and Southern California. Her recent works have been displayed in Insights at the Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, the Bristol Art Museum's Putting the Pieces Back Together exhibition in Bristol, RI, as well as at the Dutzi Gallery in Long Beach, CA. She is the recipient of the Cynthia Reeves Snow Watercolor Scholarship (2012), the Nell O. Fogg Endowed Scholarship (2021), the ASI Purchase Award (2021), and the Linda A. Day Endowed Student Award (2022).
Prayer & Care, 40x48”, 2022 Mixed media and collage on watercolor paper
A Home Where My Angels Walk With Me, 22”x15”, 2022 Monoserigraph on Stonehenge paper
Artist Statement
Meredith’s art practice is centered on the climate crisis and the life impacted by humanity’s overall lack of well-being. The work expresses reverence to creatures and plants, symbolic and integral to the planet’s various environments. These landscapes discuss food webs and environmental chains that function as successful systems humanity benefits from. Jungian theory, microcosm/macrocosm interplay, cosmology and spirituality are influential concepts.
Her practice focuses on the interconnectedness and ripple our existences have on one another. There are magical, alchemic contemplations embedded, as the natural world has supernatural and miraculous elements. The artwork calls for humanity to rewild and take better care. We are still collectively lost with respect to our place in the ecosystem. Our unchecked consumption, economic and political systems and mental health are detrimental to the whole. The works acknowledge the necessary, cohesive balance between light and darkness.