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The first work to catch your eye, Bricks On Bricks Around
Brick (2019), plays on the coupling of a machine-made
brick enclosed within a structure of miniature handmade
bricks, which have been sculpted, fired and glazed by the
artist. Here, we become privy to the use of repetition and
juxtaposition which comes to speak for the entire exhibition
writ large. The result, as it were, lures the viewer through
what have become an estranged series of ceramic processes
in modern construction. Each of the miniature bricks,
inconsistent in size, colour and form, reflect the intricate
consideration required to achieve architectural uniform
throughout a sizable structure, made entirely of bricks.
It becomes clear that Freeman intends to illustrate his
difficulties, not by hoping to achieve uniform, but by offering
us deformed renditions of it.The work lends itself to a broader exploration of the
playfulness which often comes with working on ceramic
objects, and how imperfections summon a teasing naivety,
and an appreciative respect for just how challenging it can
be to work with materials such as clay. It’s with this teasing
naivety, and the tongue-in-cheek aesthetic dialogue that
emerges in tow, that we are able to unpack – with Freeman’s
jovial guidance – how ceramic processes can often guide
their craftsman.This reveals itself again in Four Loops (2019), and Stacked
Arches (2019), where Freeman has allowed for the features
of machine-made bricks to guide their own childlike
augmentation. With Four Loops, Freeman has once
again looked to repetition to weave a series of clay loops
through the holes found in many generic machine-made
bricks today; experimenting with the ways in which clay
unpredictably responds to the firing and drying processes,
and ultimately, renders the brick itself, functionless.As is also the case with Stacked Arches (2019), which steers
your focus from the brick to the arches that rest above
it instead, perhaps the most functionless brick of the
whole show, Freeman invites us to ponder the mastered
craftsmanship of the arched structures referenced in the
work. And it emerges as a reminder of the mastery required to build such a structure, and that the
foundation of most grandiose architectural gestures, is indeed, a flawless brick.The ways Freeman straddles the duality of handmade and machine-made objects comes to
an apex in Homemade Handmade (2019), a handmade brick he crafted atop its machine-made
counterpart. Emblazoned with the words “HOME MADE”, Freeman’s DIY caricature of the brick
it rests upon offers us insight into the role of the human hand throughout the course of history,
and ultimately, the challenges faced by human labour amid a society co-opted by commercial
machinery. Complete with the holes and dimensions observed of machine-made bricks
most common today, the work crystalises our defeatist affinities with what it means to make
functioning objects by hand, and that sadly, most of what is made by hand today, could generally
be assumed functionless.