McArthur Freeman

Associate Professor, Animation & Digital Modeling
MFA, Cornell University; Master of Art & Design, North Carolina State University
Phone: (813) 974-2360
Email: mcarthur@usf.edu
Office: FAH 255

Website: www.macfreeman.com

McArthur Freeman’s practice explores how concepts of identity construction and hybridity are visually generated. The series “Finding Forms: Organic Abstraction” consists of globular, abstract forms and appendages that are spliced together and covered in skin. The strange mutations suggest familiarity, while simultaneously collapsing into abstraction, proposing the breakdown and reformation of new identities. One such sculpture, titled “Pine App,” began as a speculative drawing—a term coined by the artist to express the automatic and intuitive nature of his process. From this step, Freeman translates the drawing into a digital sculpture, fabricates the object using a 3D printer, and finally casts it in bronze. The pseudo-scientific, multi-step process allows the artist to intentionally conceive forms virtually and then physically materialize them in the world.

Freeman is the recipient of the prestigious McKnight Junior Faculty Fellowship from the Florida Education Fund. His work has been exhibited in over sixty group and solo exhibitions in the United States. Most recently, he had a solo show, “Strange Figurations,” at the Carver Center Gallery (2017) and participated in “Digitalia” at the Barrett Art Center (2017). During 2017, he presented talks at SIGGRAPH Asia and more recently at The National Council on Education for Ceramic Arts (NCECA), titled “Digital Clay: Hybrid Practices for Digital and Traditional Sculpting,”. Freeman’s work has been published in the “Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art.” He earned a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Florida, an MFA from Cornell University with a concentration in Painting, and a Master of Art and Design from North Carolina State University in Animation and New Media.