AJ Freeland specializes in oil painting.
Courtesy | AJ Freeland

 

Senior AJ Freeland is an art major and chemistry minor from Needham, Indiana. 

 

How long have you been an artist?

I really started taking art seriously roughly six years ago. I was a band kid my first two years of high school, and eventually I stopped enjoying it as much as I used to. I had seen the art show my sophomore year, so at the end of that year I decided to try art. I started taking art classes in high school and I just really dove into it. I ended up taking AP art my senior year and that really built my portfolio. 

 

What medium of art do you specialize in?

I’m mostly a 2D fine arts artist — and that’s mostly oil painting. In high school I focused on doing these really detailed colored pencil drawings, but that took a lot of time. So it was a similar process to oil painting. I find oil painting works best with the way that I think and my workflow. Once I started oil painting I never wanted to paint with anything else ever again. 

 

What attracts you to art?

My mind is like always running with creative ideas and my art is a way to take whatever is happening in here and get it out there. It’s therapeutic in a sense. I feel this impulse to always have a project going, so having developed my skill in drawing and painting is a really good way to be able to express myself creatively. 

 

How have you been involved in art through the years? 

I’ve been in studio art classes all eight semesters. I joined Alpha Rho Tao my freshman year, and I was on the officer board as the treasurer my junior year. I do theater, mostly working on the tech side in the light shop. 

 

What art piece that you’ve made in recent years is your favorite?

The one that immediately pops to mind is my football oil painting. I went into that without a clear idea of what I wanted, and then I took a couple of photos — by a couple, I mean 300. I found that one picture, and it reminded me of a Baroque painting the way all the figures were positioned. It’s on a three foot by three foot canvas. At the beginning of last semester, I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish it — it was really big and complicated — but I just plugged away at it all last semester and I was really happy with how it turned out. 

 

What are common subjects that you paint?

I tend to paint a lot of portraits and figures. Most of what I do is focused on humans. I don’t particularly love painting still lifes or landscapes. In a portrait there’s a lot going on even beyond the surface level of someone’s face — there’s a lot more that can be communicated. It’s a very fun challenge to try and portray who someone is just through their face, and more broadly, to a whole human figure. The human figure can tell a really interesting story just in the way it’s positioned. I think I like football painting so much because there’s a lot of human figures together communicating one story.

 

Are there any artists that are particularly inspiring to you?

Caravaggio and Titian, who were Italian Baroque painters, are two classics that any sort of artist who paints portraits and figures is going to look up to. There was a pop artist in the ’60s and ’70s named James Rosenquist, and he did realistic oil paintings that were very collage-like. I used to do more collage style art back in my freshman year of high school. I don’t do that as often now, but he was very influential to me for that. And I love Frida Kahlo and how much meaning is imbued into everything she painted. 

 

What professors had the most impact on you?

Julio Suarez really challenged me. I came to Hillsdale with a certain way that I drew and painted because a lot of my habits were self taught. In high school, I didn’t get a lot of instruction on technique. I just taught myself and was able to implement it. The way Professor Suarez wanted me to draw and paint was a lot different than I was used to. I struggled with adapting to how he wanted me to do things. Eventually I got to a point where I understood, so my technique is a lot better than when I started at the beginning of my college career. And then Barbara Bushey’s bubbly personality and her welcomingness drew me to Hillsdale. 

 

What are your plans going forward?

I’m going to take a gap year next year. I was considering art conservation graduate school as a way to combine my chemistry minor and my art major, but I decided to figure out if that is a good idea before I commit myself to three years of grad school for something that I’ve never done before. I might find a theater job doing lighting or an internship at a museum. 

 

Freeland’s work, including his football oil painting, will be exhibited in a senior art show beginning Friday, April 21 at 6 p.m.