CURRENT OFFERING: TOM DE FRESTON

Release 21/11/2025 - 9 AM CET

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" as well as the book “Wreck”, and a documentary exploring trauma and collaboration. In 2024, de Freston began a new series of works following his acclaimed narrative non-fiction book, “Strange Bodies”, a lyrical blend memoir, art criticism, and studio reflections. The book traces artistic dialogues with figures such as Francis Bacon, Jadé Fadojutimi, and, most notably, Titian, whose poetic paintings serve as a central inspiration for this new body of work. This series is currently on view in a solo exhibition at Varvara Roza Galleries in London (Nov 30-Dec 20) and was recently featured in an article published by The Guardian on November 26, 2025.

Link to the article:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/nov/26/tom-de-freston-on-painting-his-wife-pregnant-and-nude

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:

·   Upcoming

A solo show at Iyad Qanazea Gallery (under discussion), Abou Dhabi, UAE, March-April 2026

A solo exhibition at the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge, UK, February–May 2026

·   2025

“Poíēsis”, Varvara Roza Galleries, London, UK – solo show – Current (Nov 30-Dec 20)

·   2024

His 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 – solo show

“Shakespeare Paintings”, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK – solo show

The painting An Echo Chamber Waiting For Music, which we are offering, belongs to a new body of work, “Strange Bodies”, that explores love, grief, mythology, and the shifting boundary between personal and archetypal experience. For more than sixteen years, de Freston has painted his wife, the award-winning novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave, in various literary and mythological incarnations—Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Eurydice. These portraits often form part of the couple’s rich multimedia collaborations across books, films, graphic novels, and immersive performances.

This new series emerged from a deeply personal journey. After Millwood Hargrave’s pregnancy loss in 2020 and six subsequent miscarriages, the couple welcomed their daughter in 2023. These works, both mythic and intimate, are elegies and odes to the grief of losing a child, the resilience of love, and the wonder of parenthood. Rendered in an exquisite, dreamlike palette, the paintings evoke bodies and minds in transition—pregnant, abstracted, dissolving into surfaces and re-emerging from hidden underworlds.

De Freston stages his figures within shifting spaces—architectural grids, natural landscapes, and intimate interiors—where they hover between visibility and disappearance. Shadows, footprints, and outstretched hands interrupt the scenes, evoking the presence of both artist and viewer while exploring the dynamics of distance and empathy. These spaces are psychological hinterlands, inviting viewers into sacred realms that remain just beyond reach. Born from a journey through loss and grief, they ultimately speak to hope and wonder. These paintings were not originally intended to be exhibited but were instead a means for the artist to process his own grief.