‘Winter was Hard'

An exhibition by Erik Freeland NARROWSBURG - “Winter Was Hard,” new photographic landscapes by Sullivan County artist Erik Freeland, opens at the Delaware Arts Center Gallery, 37 Main Street, Narrowsburg, N.Y., on Saturday March 25 with a reception from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. The exhibition will be on view through April 14. Erik Freeland was born in Richmond, Va., in 1969. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photojournalism from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1993. He has worked internationally as photojournalist and has done work for The Independent in London, England, The US News & World Report in Washington DC and for a time was based in Paris where worked for a number of American and British magazines including Business Week, Forbes and The Sunday Telegraph Magazine covering news and feature stories throughout France. Affiliated with SABA Press International in New York, his clients also included Time, Newsweek, Fortune and The New York Times. Even though most of his past photographic work has been in magazine photojournalism, this current body of work is returning him to, and revitalizing, his core photographic interests. “The idea for this show developed during our first full winter at our house in Cochecton,” said Freeland. “The winter of 04-05 and was brutal in both its length and severity. I hope to relay the feelings I had of the stark, subtle beauty of the landscape and how weather reduces nature down to harsh and beautiful forms with moments of appreciation and moments of disgust. “Photography has always been my excuse to explore, discover and have a means to share my excitement with others. I try to communicate the same sense of excitement similar to a child showing something he has just found under a rock when I take a photograph. I have always enjoyed this search for images and most of the work I hold dearest was found this way. I think at its core it is this process that I have been attracted to in both my photojournalism and current landscape work.” Erik Freeland’s “Winter Was Hard” is sponsored by the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, the Arts Council for Sullivan County, NY, and is made possible in part with funding from the Visual Arts Program of the New York State Council on the Arts. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information about the exhibit call 845-252-7576.