BY MERVIT BASHI

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

KRISTA HUSA

he contemporary style
of Bloomfield Hills
artist Marcia Freedman
involves the use of dif-
ferent symbols that make up her
own personal "alphabet," giving
dialogue to life situations. Of
these, the pod is the most basic
unit around which her abstract oil
paintings are formed. The pods
and other abstracted shapes sug-
gest female body parts, while
addressing changes in a woman's
body.
Recently, Freedman's paintings
were featured in an exhibit called
"A Line of Color," at the Cary
Gallery in downtown Rochester.
Her most recent work, which
intensely focuses on psychological
inwardness and relationships,
involves the use of much more
color than her previous, more sub-
dued, works.
One of the works in the show,
titled "Haih," is a charcoal on
paper. This also happens to be the
largest of these pieces, but its size
is not unique to Freedman's work
since she most commonly works
with large, square canvases, some-
times measuring 4, 5 or 8 feet.
By using several layers of paint
which are put on and scraped off
over and over again, Freedman cre-
ates brilliant representations of a
woman's body, body parts and
physiological changes in the body
"Built of many layers, my work
addresses color, light and a tension
between thickly encrusted and
thinly painted surfaces," she says.
Her technique gives the works the
contrasted appearance of depth
and dimension as well as decorated
flatness.
Freedman describes this latest
series, saying, "Each of these has a
story from me and my relationships
with other people."
Freedman's studio is actually sit-
uated in an urban locale not too far
from Wayne State University
where she studied art. She's been
working in this space for the past
11 years and there are nearly 20
other artists in the building, which
makes for an incredibly creative
atmosphere, she says.
Both individually and as a body,
Freedman's powerful work evokes
tremendous emotion.

s

1, E A 'I"THE iN • NOVI!: NI 11 E 12 2002

• 19