黑料正能量

Along her path to becoming an artist, a study abroad experience at 黑料正能量 played a pivotal role. 鈥淚t was the most transformational, amazing time I've ever had creatively and artistically,鈥� she says. While earning her undergraduate degree, she pursued independent study during a semester abroad. Freelon immersed herself in art and architecture, spending countless hours in museums and learning beyond the classroom. Parisian culture also left a strong impression. 鈥淚 loved that in the cafes, you sit outside facing the street. There's a culture of watching what's happening. You're not getting that coffee to go,鈥� she says.

Her explorations deepened her understanding of art鈥檚 social context and historical power structures. She recalls seeing 鈥渕aster鈥� paintings in the Louvre and noticing that Black people were only depicted as servants. 鈥淚 thought, why am I learning only white European men as masters of art? Even calling a painter master鈥揵ack to the slave master.鈥� She also valued being in a city where Black expatriates from the U.S. thrived despite racism at home, finding greater acceptance in Paris.

Questions about exclusion also extended to artistic materials鈥揳nd set the scene for later innovations. She observed a hierarchy in materials while studying figure drawing and sculpture. 鈥淚f it's not oil painting or the finest clay or watercolors, it's considered lower art or less important.鈥�

During her MFA studies at Tufts University, Freelon lived with her grandmother, in whose basement she discovered a stack of multicolored tissue paper stained with water from a leaking pipe. To Freelon, it was a 鈥渂eautiful accident.鈥� She embraced its accessibility and contrasting fragility and resilience. 鈥淚t resonates with me, with children, with anybody who's ever touched tissue paper.鈥� Freelon has since patented several creative processes, including Tissue Ink Monoprints, a technique of dyeing paper and blending ink onto another surface. She also creates sculptures and tissue quilts, often in community workshops, evoking the quilting bees of her heritage.

Freelon brought this approach to life in her most recent exhibit, Whippersnappers: Recapturing, Reviewing, and Reimagining the Lives of Enslaved Children in the United States (November 2024 through January 2025). Presented at Historic Stagville in Durham鈥攆ormerly one of North Carolina鈥檚 largest plantations鈥攖he interactive exhibit featured 20 new works that recast images of enslaved children, sourced from the Library of Congress, into ecstatically colorful portraits through tissue prints, painting, collage, and sculptures.

Freelon chose to feature children because 鈥渢hey're the first African-Americans鈥搕he descendants of those brought over unwillingly to work.鈥� She searched thousands of photos spanning slavery through Reconstruction--taken chiefly to document property--looking for those that did not depict labor or pain. 鈥淚 was looking for joy. I wanted to celebrate a childhood often blunted by horror. They also had the resilience of children and could play and laugh.鈥� In the end, she found only one: a small girl laughing in a field of wildflowers, the subject of a work called Beautiful Flower. 鈥淚 wanted her to be remembered in a way that wasn't objectified and transactional,鈥� Freelon says. I wanted her to just be free.鈥�

While Freelon has exhibited internationally, she says that transforming a former plantation owner's home 鈥渇elt liberating鈥揃lack people weren't allowed there except for service.鈥� Attendees reflected on the emotional impact of encountering the playful, whimsical works in such a charged setting. As often in Freelon鈥檚 work, visitor engagement was central to Whippersnappers, which featured activities such as children鈥檚 games and collaborative musical performances.

The Stagville show has closed, but Whippersnappers sparked a dialogue that continues. Duke University professor Annette Joseph-Gabriel and author of the forthcoming book Enslaved Childhoods: Survival and Storytelling in the Atlantic World, was so inspired by the exhibit that she is adding an epilogue about it to her text. Additionally, some works from Whippersnappers are currently on view at the Morton Fine Art Gallery in Washington, DC.

For Freelon, creating space for this exchange goes back to provoking the powerful pause she learned in Paris. 鈥淢y goal is to make art that's so beautiful you don't have a choice鈥搚ou have to stop and take it in.鈥�