Avatar
Artist information:
Todd Freeman & Meg Perec
Fennville, MI

Text voting ID: Tooltip
Up: vote36381
Down: vote36380

Work collaborators:
Freeman & Perec
Todd Freeman

Meg Perec
Todd Freeman & Meg Perec is showing at:
47 Commerce SW 47 Commerce SW
47 Commerce SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
View profile
Todd Freeman & Meg Perec
Artist bio: Meg Perec (b. 1981) is an emerging artist and printmaker who is known for her works in intaglio and other print media. She holds a BFA in printmaking from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan and has exhibited her work regionally and nationally. Perec, a master of the craft of etching copper plates, has taught printmaking workshops and worked as a master printer of intaglio plates. Her work is in public and private collections in the United States and France.

Todd Freeman (b. 1981) lives and works as a printmaker and artist in Grand Rapids,MI. He received a BFA in printmaking from Grand Valley State University and was a visiting artist at Kendall College of Art & Design in 2008. Freeman is most associated with his meticulous, fine lined copper etchings. Exhibiting regularly since 2002, his first solo show 'Life & Limb' opened in the spring of 2009.
Artist statement: Meg Perec: Art-making has provided me with a way to explore my many curiosities and interests: fossils, buried things, oddities of the natural world, igloos, monsters (real and imagined) and most recently, the polar regions of our planet. My goal as an artist is to make images that pique the viewer’s imagination and curiosity.

Todd Freeman: I've found printmaking and drawing has been the most effective way to communicate my longstanding interest in the natural world. I'm generally driven to make images about subjects that are as yet undocumented in some traditional sense: monsters, lost species, and other unfamiliar or anomalous phenomena. Museum culture (amateur & academic), folklore, fortean zoology tales, and natural history "wonders" all provide a constant stream of new subjects, ones that I hope viewers will want to return to again and again like a well worn field guide.
About the work:
Title: Sixty Foot Ghost

Art form: 2-D, 3-D, Sound

Medium: Drawing on Paper, Collected Objects, Sound

Year created: 2009

Description of work: A site specific installation; part drawing/part object collection, of a life size giant squid.

The drawing itself would be completed in sections, roughly 10 ft each. The complete drawing will be 60 ft long, and about 4 ft high. The intent is for the drawing to be as realistic as possible, confronting viewers with an intense visual experience. Background and history on the animal will also be provided in the installation.

Work statement: Large animals captivate like few other beings can. They are deified, hunted, consumed and catalogued. While our culture has seemingly amassed a working knowledge of all living species on the planet, one of the world’s giants has successfully eluded the scientific community for centuries. Save for a few partially decomposed specimens virtually nothing is known of Architeuthis dux, the Giant Squid. Architeuthis is a 60 foot ghost, moving unnoticed through deep and dark.

Our representation of the giant squid was conceived out of a need to see the animal for ourselves, beyond pale museum subjects or small renderings in books. At life size, the true scale of Architeuthis becomes clear, a massive, unfamiliar animal deserving of the same fascination and wonder owed to any whale, elephant or dinosaur. Our intent is to bring the myth into a gratifying real space, and give the viewer a chance to be confronted with one of the largest and most secretive animals to ever live.

Technical details:
Work width: 744 inches
Work height: 42 inches
Work depth: 48 inches
Required venue ceiling: 96 inches
Required venue door height: 72 inches
Required venue door width: 36 inches
Required wall linear footage: 62 ft.
Required venue square footage: 240 sq. ft.
Additional considerations:
Audio/video needed: No
Electrical needed: Yes
Lighting needed: Yes
Internet access needed: No
Ground floor access needed: No
Indoor space needed: Yes
Outdoor space needed: No
© 2009-2010 ArtPrize Grand Rapids, Inc.