Till Freiwald

Till Freiwald’s watercolor portraits push the limits of the medium and, in a painstaking process of blending layers of translucent color, the work achieves an otherworldly glow. He begins with a direct encounter with his subject and then makes small-scale sketches from the photograph. Setting those studies aside, he completes his monumental watercolors from the image in his “mind’s eye,” capturing what he has called “the main characteristics of the face.”

He has had solo exhibitions at institutions such as Kemper Museum of Art in Kansas City and the Gellscraft der Freund Junger Kunst in Baden-Baden. Freiwald’s work has been presented in group exhibitions at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Museum für Moderne Kunst in Bozen, Rupertinum in Salzburg, and the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, among others.

Courtesy of Parrish Art Museum