PHILIP FREY (American b.1967- )Painter "As a painter, Philip Frey’s goal is often a project of soft persuasion. We recognize his scenes easily enough. But as we shift our focus from the recognizable subject to the insistent forms, luscious brushwork and compositional design, the painting slips out of representational focus and back to abstraction, the true place of Frey’s poetry,” writes Daniel Kany in Here and Now. Philip Frey was born in Portland, Maine in 1967, graduated with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Painting from Syracuse University in 1990, and has studied with master Maine artist, Alan Bray. He maintains a full-time studio practice nestled in the woods along the coast of downeast Maine and teaches select painting workshops each year. Frey’s primary focus is the color, light, and forms of the landscape as well as the figure and interiors. He paints from direct perception, preferring the dynamic quality, richness, and challenges of working from life. Frey is a nationally exhibiting artist, with a long and steady show history in acclaimed galleries. The University of Maine Museum of Art mounted a solo exhibition of his work in 2016. The monograph, Philip Frey: Here and Now, by Daniel Kany and Carl Little was released in 2018. His work has been featured in several publications, including: Art New England, Art of Acadia, Gettysburg Review, Maine Policy Review, and the Maine Sunday Telegram. Currently, Frey’s work is held internationally in prominent private and corporate collections, including that of writer Harlan Coben, Rep. Chellie Pingree & Donald Sussman, Dick Wolf Films and the University of Maine Museum of Art. George Kinghorn, writes, “Here and Now offers readers, collectors, and art aficionados a selection of recent work by Philip Frey, one of Maine’s most accomplished painters. Frey, who began his career as an artist over twenty years ago, explains that his work addresses “a need to explore, discover, and stretch” his limits as a painter, and that by design, his explorations in one series influence the other, and vice versa. This constant search for new sources of inspiration is integral to his process.” My latest body of work, centers around my long-held interest in Maine’s iconic landscape, working harbors, and intimate interiors. Experimentation with unexpected color, assertive shape, and multifarious and fearless brushstroke has always been an aspiration of my work. In this collection, all three amalgamate to reveal the latent qualities of paint on canvas: luscious and plain; crisp and blurred; opaque and transparent; vivid and muted. These elements coalesce to bring into focus the potential interplay between place, experience and creative agency.