Britt Freda Portfolios

Raven Brings the Light is an Indigenous creation narrative of many Coastal Pacific Northwest tribes, specifically the Haida and Tlingit people. In the story, the world is dark. Raven, a mischievous yet clever, wise trickster, steals the light from a greedy keeper. With the brilliant sun in his beak—“representing enlightenment, knowledge, and the life force that sustains and connects all living beings”—Raven escapes the light-hoarder by flying high into the sky. In the process, the fiery light burns Raven’s once-white or rainbow-colored body to a charred, inky black.

In this painting, Raven reveals underlayers of color, left over from a more pristine past, or shimmering reminders of ephemeral tones created by refracted light. By looking deeply, find foundational layers of raw, natural birch, or rough graphite lines joined by layers of gold and silver leaf—a nod to the ancient Japanese art of kintsugi, the art of repairing with gold. Raven is a reminder that heroic acts of bravery required to change our worlds often leave us transformed by our scars. Scars serve as reminders that the broken and mended parts of ourselves are the strongest and most brilliant.

Raven Brings the Light will be showing at
National Museum of Wildlife Art
2024 Western Visions Art Show
September 7 - 29, 2024

Western Visions 2024 Online Gallery

Meet the artists

Artist Statements

Harris Walz • Forward 2024

09/10/2024

Raven Brings the Light

07/24/2024

This new painting, RAVEN BRINGS THE LIGHT, will show at the 2024 National Museum of Wildlife Art Western Visions Art Show in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The exhibit is open September 7 - 29, 2024. Tickets go on sale August 1, 2024 for the Patron Open Sale and Awards Event on Thursday, September 12!

Interdependence

07/23/2024

INTERDEPENDENCE is that young orca spiraling under its mother’s shadow into the spears and shards of sun lines up into the crashing spray of a raucous pod simply, simply, simply... for joy.

HOPE (a pandemic poem)

04/23/2020

video poem

Art is the seed of humanity. Bee the change.

12/01/2019

Environmental Impact and Renewable Energy

09/24/2018

I hope each of us asks this question often: what is environmental impact? And what is my environmental impact? Sometimes, my subjects are endangered species and extinction. Sometimes they are about climate change. Sometimes I focus my gaze on bees or social (in)equality and education. And sometimes environmental impact is, intimately, about the landscapes of internal darkness, that which is hidden underneath: vulnerability, fragility, fear, trauma, uncertainty, loss, humanity, courage, connection and love—of place, of animals, of self, of people we care about. Environmental impact is melting icecaps and hugging a tender-hearted, teary child. Environmental impact is prioritizing the people you love with kisses and fat hugs and prioritizing voting and recycling and consuming conscientiously. Environmental impact is renewable energy: the sun, wind and water. ALSO RENEWABLE ENERGY is: love, laughter, inclusion, compassion and education.

COUR•AGE

06/05/2018

As a contemporary painter focused on environmental impact, endangered species and social equality issues, I am interested in the social impact of art. Art inspires, and cultivates innovation and science. And, circuitously, science and innovation inspire art. As we build our future it is essential that we design from a foundation where compassion, science, innovation and art intersect. Why art? Our attraction to beauty is part of our humanity. It connects us. Beauty can restore dignity and hope. Art has the power to unite. When wielded well, art reaches inside, beyond words or explanations or cerebral data points. Inside, felt by the gut or the heart,beauty reaches beyond race or gender or socioeconomics or orientation or religion or politics. From a visceral, emotional place, art inspires people to care. Only when people care, when they feel emotionally connected, are they compelled to question, to learn, to grow, to change, to take action.

Courage Statement

02/01/2018

This year I have been swirling in a thematic, conceptual exploration of cour•age: the age of heart.

LOVE paintings

12/11/2017

“What if sex was holy and war was obscene. And it wasn’t twisted, what a wonderful dream” – Alicia Keys, Holy War. In a time of warring ideas, sexism, racism, fascism, ism, ism, ism… in a time of historical mass exodus, the ever present threat of nuclear war, the temperamental wrath of climate change and extensions I, like so many, wonder what the heck is the antidote, the ballast? When I talk or write about my paintings, from my lightly used soapbox for introverts, I fervently espouse that it is essential to compel a person to love something before they’ll risk what it takes to defend it. If you are familiar with my work, you know I’ve devoted many, many years (wearing: the Lorax superhero costume under my clothes) focusing on endangered species as well as threatened environments and beings.

The Bee for Patagonia and The Creative Action Network #voteourplanet campaign

09/22/2016

"Patagonia and the Creative Action Network aim to create a new activist collection of political protest posters to communicate Patagonia’s belief that our country’s economy, security and future are wholly dependent on a healthy environment and urging all of us to take action and vote to protect our planet. Born out of The Canary Project, CAN, and Patagonia’s Vote The Environment campaign of 2014, #voteourplanet is inviting artists & designers across the country to use their talents for our planet." - Creative Action Network read more to learn the why of the bee.

The Whale for Patagonia and The Creative Action Network's #voteourplanet campaign

09/22/2016

Patagonia and Creative Action Network partner to create the #voteourplanet campaign

09/22/2016

Learn

05/26/2016

My paintings have been influenced by a lifelong fascination, awe and reverence for the natural world. Michele Corriel, Art & Architecture, 2014 wrote "[Britt Freda’s paintings] ask us to travel not only the roads we see but the ones we’ve lost along the way.” While my subjects are rooted in realism, the closer the viewer gets one will discover my surfaces are regularly imbedded with etched words, statistics, poems, maps or seedpods. The elements that are layered between patterns of color are usually circuitously referential of environmental elements (seed pods, petals, cellular structures...).

7/24/2024

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