Ampersand is pleased to present Basebrawls, an exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Harrison Freeman. As with Both Sides Now, his previous exhibition at the gallery, Freeman pairs his singular line work and unique color palette with the weathered textures of found antique paper, both loose and mounted to panel substrates. Fittingly for an early summer show, his focus is baseball, but not your typical iconic players pitching on the mound, swinging a bat or rounding the bases after legendary home runs. Instead, we see fist fights, injuries and the underlying brutality of a game that does not appear brutal at face value. Citing baseball as his greatest passion, Freeman notes that he appreciates every aspect of the game, particularly the unwritten "code" by which many players abide. "Bat flipping, standing in the batters box too long to watch a home run go, throwing at hitters in retaliation and the chaos that sometimes erupts from breaking or following (depending on how you look at it) unwritten rules. There are particular moments that stand out: Randy Johnson picking up the wrong hat after a fight with the Giants, Tyler Colvin's punctured lung from a flying broken bat down the third base line, Nolan Ryan's now legendary fight with Robin Ventura and Juan Marichal attacking Johnny Roseboro with his bat (with Willie Mays crossing enemy lines to help Roseboro after the fight)." Manifest in these moments is an underlying tension that is constantly in play, one engrained in how players play and how we eagerly watch the game.

Harrison Freeman graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has shown in solo and two-person shows here at Ampersand and Giant Robot in Los Angeles. He has worked with Gary Baseman and Wayne White and has done graphic design and illustration work for Good magazine, The Playboy Jazz Festival, Discover Magazine and many other publications. His work has been featured in CMYK's Top 100 New Creatives, 3x3's annaul edtion and American Illustration. His paintings and drawings are in several private and corporate collections. Freeman lives and works in Portland, OR.

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Tavarez v. Gathright, 2014
Acrylic, watercolor and ink
20 x 10 in.
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