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“The objective for my artworkis to evoke thought, questioning and discovery,” says Maya Freelon ’05, a young artist who is gaining national and international renown.
The recipient of Lafayette’s Riley Temple ’71 Creative/Artistic Citizenship Award, presented to a student whose creative scholarship in the visual and/or performance arts contributes to knowledge on societal issues of multicultural concern, Freelon worked extensively with Curlee Raven Holton and guest artists at the Experimental Printmaking Institute, including Sam Gilliam and Faith Ringgold, whom she names as a mentor along with Deborah Willis, Beverly McIver, and Emma Amos.
At Lafayette Freelon developed a technique she calls “hybrigitals,” which explores the interconnectivity of traditional and digital media while incorporating personal content, earning honors in studio art. She has presented and written extensively about the unique fusion of traditional and digital art techniques.
“My artwork is a constantly evolving process in which I seek to interpret my perceptions. Once relevant perceptions are identified, I utilize various media, both traditional and non-traditional, to translate them into artwork,” she says. “It is amazing that Maya Freelon uses technology to tell a human truth,” says Maya Angelou. “She observes and visualizes the truth about the vulnerability and the power of the human being.”
Her most recent solo exhibition, In-Dependence, at the Hayti Heritage Center’s Lyda Moore Merrick Gallery in Durham, N.C., featured politically charged works. “Sociopolitical issues, introspective explorations, and metaphysical conundrums fuel my desire to create. What becomes artwork is ultimately based on inspiration and urgency,” she says.
“Maya Freelon is Durham’s newest young star. The daughter of an architect father (Phil Freelon) and a jazz singer mother (Nnenna Freelon), Freelon has found her own artistic voice in the visual arts. The current exhibition is her first solo show in her hometown and reflects her progress during 2005,” praised the Durham Herald-Sun. “Freelon’s work is political. In some pieces, she has her say about racial equality. In others, she explores her own search for identity, and in her abstracts, she is trying to visualize her grief for those who suffered the most from the devastation in New Orleans.”
Freelon honed her craft last summer at Maine’s Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, one of the foremost artists’ residency communities in the nation, and is pursuing a master of fine arts degree at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The founder of the award-winning community arts collaborative, Make Your Mark Art (www.makeyourmarkart.org), Freelon is assistant director of the African American Visual Artists Database, a free, online database of artists of the African Diaspora and Africa who have lived, worked, studied, or exhibited in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean.
Freelon has displayed her work in several group exhibitions, including the Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference in Philadelphia; Blurring Racial Barriers and Blurring Racial Barriers II in Winston-Salem, N.C.; Boston Young Contemporaries at Boston University; and What is Freedom at the Gallery of Social and Political Art, Boston. Her artwork is featured in the forthcoming book, Home Girls Make Some Noise: A Hip Hop Feminist Anthology, edited by Gwendolyn Pough, Elaine Richardson, Rachel Raimist, and Aisha Durham.
More information is available at www.mayafreelon.com.