Tom de Freston (born in 1983 in London) is a British visual artist based in Oxford, known for his immersive multimedia works that blend painting, film, and performance into cohesive narratives. His art explores the darker facets of human experience, juxtaposing figurative and abstract elements to create unsettling yet compelling compositions.

He graduated from Cambridge University in 2007 and has since held several notable residencies and fellowships, including a Leverhulme Residency at the University of Cambridge and the inaugural Creative Fellowship at Birmingham University.

De Freston's painterly, literary, and stage projects are often collaborative and interdisciplinary, drawing on literary, art historical, personal, and social themes.

His regular collaborators include his wife, writer Kiran Millwood Hargrave; filmmaker Mark Jones (Unmarked Films); writer and academic Professor Simon Palfrey; and academic Dr. Pablo de Orellana. Past collaborative projects include “Demons Land”, “Orpheus and Eurydice”, and “Scavengers”.

In collaboration with his wife, de Freston has co-authored award-winning children's books, including “Julia and the Shark” (2021). His debut non-fiction work, “Wreck” (2022), blended memoir, fiction, and art history, offering a personal exploration of Théodore Géricault's “The Raft of the Medusa”.

A significant event in de Freston's career occurred when his studio was destroyed by fire in 2018, resulting in the loss of twelve years of work. This tragedy inspired the creation of a critically acclaimed series of large-scale paintings, "I Saw This" —of which the offered painting is a part—as well as the book “Wreck”, and a documentary exploring trauma and collaboration.

De Freston's work is included in major museums and institutions such as the Arts Council of Great Britain, The Whitworth, National Portrait Gallery, The Contemporary Art Society, Holburne Museum, Royal Academy of Arts Collection, Barbican Centre Museum London, and Moco Museum London.

His work has also been featured in numerous key galleries and museums over the years.

Selected Shows / Projects:

2025 – Upcoming

A solo show at the Varvara Roza Galleries is planned for May or November – Date to be confirmed

2024

Paintings were shown as part of the museum’s permanent collection, The Whitworth, Manchester, UK

2023

“Small Worlds”, No20 Arts Gallery, London, UK – solo show

“After Before”, No20 Arts Gallery , London, UK – group show

2022

“From Darkness”, No20 Arts Gallery, London, UK – solo show

2018

“Orpheus and Eurydice”, Lush Life (headquarters), London, UK – collaborative project

“Demons Land”, Arts Council England – Old Fire Station, Oxford, UK – multimedia collaboration

2017

“Demons Land”, Stowe National Trust, Buckingham, UK – multimedia collaboration

“Demons Land”, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK – multimedia collaboration

2016

Commissioned Project by Battersea Arts Centre, London, UK – permanent installation

“Orpheus and Eurydice”, Ugly Duck - 47/49 Tanner Street, London, UK – multimedia collaboration

2014

“Orpheus and the Minotaur”, Bresse Little Gallery, London, UK – solo show

2013

“The Charnel House”, Bresse Little Gallery, London, UK – solo show

“Paintings After Shakespeare”, The Globe Theatre, London, UK – solo show

2012

“Scavengers”, Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Tokyo, Japan – solo show

“On Theatre”, Bresse Little Gallery, London, UK

“Shakespeare Paintings”, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK

The painting “Fold”, which we are offering, is part of Tom de Freston’s “I Saw This” series, which he began in 2019. The series was exhibited in a solo show at No 20 Arts Gallery in London in 2022 and later documented in a publication released by Anomie Publishing in 2023. This work is one of 25 large paintings (200 × 125 cm) created for the series, which also includes smaller paintings and works on paper.

The series explores the visual and emotional impact of war, displacement, and personal loss. It emerged from a collaboration with Syrian academic Dr. Ali Souleman, who lost his sight in a 1997 bomb attack while waiting at a bus stop in Damascus. The project seeks to translate Souleman’s internal world of memories into a highly charged body of paintings that explore the visual and emotional impact of war, displacement, and personal loss. Through haunting, fragmented imagery, the series blends figurative and abstract elements to evoke a sense of disorientation and fractured reality.