Janice Freeman
JANICE FREEMAN works in a wide variety of mediums, including oil and acrylic painting, collage, monotypes, encaustic, stone sculpture, and -- most recently -- watercolor painting. She has described herself, first of all, as a colorist, but that hardly does justice to the elegant designs, intellectual play, and sensual quality of her wide-ranging work.
Freeman, who divides her time between studios in Mineral de Pozos, Guanajuato and Houston, Texas, grew up in Pharr, Texas. She traces her love of Mexico and the Mexican people to the adventurous days of her youth in Pharr, when she and her friends rode their ponies back and forth across the river, in and out of Mexico.
As a teenager, Freeman decided that she wanted to be an artist, so she left the Texas Valley and moved to Houston, where her father lived, in order to attend the High School for Performing and Visual Arts. After graduation there, she traveled widely throughout Europe, India, and the Middle East. Eventually, she returned to Texas and received her Bachelor of Arts in painting from the University of Texas.
For the first nine years of her career after graduation, Freeman lived in Dallas, where she established a studio and exhibited at the Edith Baker Gallery and the Dallas Museum of Art. In 1996, she moved to Houston, exhibiting there with the Koelsch Gallery, and establishing relationships with Taos Blue Gallery of Taos, New Mexico and the Paragon Gallery in Los Angeles.
Freeman has exhibited her work widely in the United States, Mexico, and Spain, where her work has been purchased for numerous private collections. Since building a home and moving to Pozos in 1999, she has reestablished her childhood connection to Mexico, which continues to deeply influence her work.
2005 through 2008 were years of prolific production and numerous shows for Freeman in Mexico. She mounted two highly original and acclaimed solo exhibitions at the Galeria del Centro in Mineral de Pozos. The first, in March and April of 2007, was a set of thirteen oil painting and collages in a show titled La Luz de Maguey, exploring the beauty and magic of the maguey plant. In July and August of the same year, she exhibited a new collection of pieces, both two- and three-dimensional, assembled from objects found in the streets of Pozos and in the surrounding countryside. Over the same four years, Freeman exhibited in seven group shows, including the Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts, Pergola Gallery, and Galeria 6.
In 2009, the Museo Regional de Querétaro mounted a solo exhibition of 27 new paintings by Freeman. The show, titled Historias, Sueños, y Travesías, accompanied by a catalog and an introduction by David S. Rubin, Brown Curator of Contemporary Art and the San Antonio Museum of Art, will open on February 5, 2011 at the Gallery Nord in San Antonio. In November of 2011, her work "Tornadoes and Nests" appeared in the New Acquisitions opening at the San Antonio Museum of Art.
In addition to her fine art work, Freeman continues to apply her ideas and visual talents to furniture design and interior architecture for private clients throughout Texas. Since 2007, she has also worked with her husband, photographer Geoff Winningham, on the Pozos Art Project, a project dedicated to fostering enhanced relations between the United States and Mexico through the teaching of art to children and young adults of both cultures.
SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011
"Stories, Dreams and Passages", Gallery Nord, San Antonio, Texas
2010
"Historias, Suenos y Travesias", Museo Regional de Queretaro, Queretaro, Mexico
2008
"Maguey", Koelsch Gallery, Houston, Texas
2007
"Fibras de la Vida", Galleria 6, Mineral de Pozos, Mexico
2006
"Bottles, Wires and Cans" Galleria Del Centro, Guanajuato, Mexico "Luz De Maguey" Galleria Del Centro, Guanajuato, Mexico
2005
"Open Studio #1" Studio, Guanajuato, Mexico
2004
"Open Studio #2" Studio, Guanajuato, Mexico
2000
"Seventy five Pieces" Summer Street Studio, Houston, Texas
2001
"Objects in the Earth" Galleria 6, Guanajuato, Mexico
1998
"Time Lines" Koelsch Gallery, Houston, Texas "Large Panels" Casa Mexicana, Guanajuato, Mexico "February Angel" Koelsch Gallery, Houston, Texas
1997
"After the Birth Come the Stories" Summer Street Studio, Houston Texas
1995
"One Woman, One Night Only" -Susan G. Komen Foundation Benefit thru Vary Magazine, Dallas, Texas "Adios" Hickory Street Annex, Dallas, Texas "The Circus Series" The Call Corporation, Dallas Texas "Sand Paintings" The Dallas Design Center, Wendy Krispin Showroom, Dallas, Texas
1994
"Rites of Spring" Edith Baker Gallery, Dallas, Texas
1993
"Garden Series" Women's World Exposition, Dallas, Texas
1992
"Architectural Elements" Hickory Street Annex, Dallas, Texas "Icy Places," Art House, Dallas, Texas "Horses" Fair Park Coliseum" Dallas, Texas "Monotypes of a Texan" d'Cada Galleria, Spain
1991
"Corridas" Madrid Gallery, Dallas, Texas
1985
"Final Show" University of Texas Gallery, Edinburg, Texas
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2011
"Recent Acquisitions", San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas
2008
"Summer Group", Pergola Gallery, Guanajuato, Mexico
"El Groupo", Galleria 6, Guanajuato, Mexico
"The 37th International Juried Show", Museum of Fine Arts of Brownsville, Brownsville, Texas
"Place in the Sky" Galleria 6, Guanajuato, Mexico
"Artists of Pergola", Pergola Gallery, Guanajuato, Mexico
2007
"Regional Group" Galleria 6, Guanajuato, Mexico
"Recent Works" Pergola Gallery, Guanajuato, Mexico
"Variantes" Pergola Gallery, Guanajuato, Mexico
2006
"Animals" Koelsch Gallery, Houston, Texas
"Bailey Banks and Biddle Benefit for Texas Children's Hospital" Houston Galleria, Houston, Texas
2005
"1st Pozos Walk" Open Studio, Guanajuato, Mexico
"2nd Pozos Walk" Open Studio, Guanajuato, Mexico
2003
"Rodeo Time" Nancy Worthington Fine Art, Houston, Texas
"Small Works" Koelsch Gallery, Houston, Texas
2001
"Cow Parade" The Houstonian, Houston, Texas
2000
"Beaux Art Ball" Museum of Fine Art , Dallas, Texas
"Pozos Show" Casa Mexicana, Guanajuato, Mexico
1999
"Small Works" Koelsch Gallery, Houston, Texas
"Way Cool Benefit" Koelsch Gallery, Houston, Texas
1998
"Art Crawl" Nancy Worthington Fine Art" Houston, Texas
1997
"Two Visions: Winningham and Freeman" Galleria San Miguel, Guanajuato, Mexico
"H.S.P.V.A. Celebrating Twenty Five Years" A Juried Exhibition at Diverse Works, Houston, Texas
1995
"One Woman: One Night Only – The Art Of Janice Freeman,", benefiting the Susan G. Komen Foundation www.komen.org thru Vary Magazine, Dallas, Texas
1994
"Rites of Spring " Edith Baker Gallery, Dallas, Texas
1993
"Visions-The Women's Expo", Dallas Infomart, Dallas, Texas
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Hidden Mexico", Alice Gorden, Travel and Leisure, 2011
"Reclaiming Our History", Scott Andrews, San Antonio Current, 2011
"Artist's love of Mexico, Pours from her Work", Steve Bennett, San Antonio Express, 2011
"Spy kids 1 & 4", 2001 and 2011
Fotofest, "The Pozos Children's Project", The Jung Center Editorial, 2008
"The Pozos Children's Project at the Witliff Collections, Texas State University", Austin American Statesman, 2008
"Mi Pueblo- The Pozos Children's Project", The keystone publication Texas State university, 2008
"Great Homes and Destinations", Shermakaye Bass, New York Times, November, 2007
"Former Mining Town, Haven for Artists", Shermakaye Bass, International Herald Tribune, 2007
"The Something of Nothing", Teresa Martinez, La Attencion, October, 2006
"El Maguey", Teresa Martinez, La Atencion, January , 2005
"Texas Children's Hospital Benefit", Baily Banks and Biddle Fundraising Catalog, 2005
"CowParade-Houston", Jerry Elbaum, Houston, 2001
"Official Cow Parade Houston", Houston Chronicle, 2001
"Lone Star Round-Up", Joe Kress, Rodders' Journal#23, 2000
"The Hair Ball", Micheal Quintanilla, Los Angeles Times, 1998
"How Very Hairy at Lawndale", Houston Chronicle, 1998
"The Arts", Shermakaye Bass, Dallas Morning News, 1992
"Uplifting Undertaking", Janet Tyson, Fort Worth Star Telegram, 1994
"Briefly...", Jon Lagow, Detour Magazine, Los Angeles, 1991
"Picture Perfect", Eric Stoltz, Dallas Observer, 1990
EDUCATION
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts
GALLERY REPRESENTATION
Gallery Nord, San Antonio, Texas
Galleria 6, Mineral de Pozos, Guanajuato, Mexico
SELECT WORKSHOPS / HONORS
"Artist Lecture Series", Biblioteca of San Miguel de Allende, 2010
The Pozos art project workshops 2008 thru 2011
"The Pozos Children's Project", The Regional Museum of Querretaro, Querretaro, Mexico, 2008
"The Pozos Children's Project" The Bill Witliff Collection of Sothwestern and Mexican Photography, San Marcos, 2009
"The Pozos Children's Project" – Photofest -The Jung Center, Houston, Texas 2008
In Studio Encaustic Workshops, 2007
River Oaks Elementary Children's Project, Six Large Paintings, 2008
City of the Children Monotype Workshop, 2002
Other Americas Summer Workshops with Geoff Winningham, (Drawing and Photography), 2002
Other Americas Summer Workshops with Geoff Winningham and Sally Gall, (Drawing and Photography) 1999
Other Americas Summer Workshops with Geoff Winningham and John Szarkowski, - (Drawing and Photography), 1998
Other Americas Summer Workshops with Geoff Winningham, Drawing and Photography), 1996
Lamont Wilcox Full Talent Scholarship, 1986, 1985, and 1984