{"title":"Tom de Freston","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTom de Freston\u003c\/strong\u003e crafts deeply evocative works that blend vivid imagery with intimate storytelling. His books, such as \u003cem\u003eStrange Bodies\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eWreck\u003c\/em\u003e, explore themes of human fragility and resilience through a unique fusion of visual art and written word.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReaders can expect a profound engagement with memory, identity, and the creative process, situated within the realms of \u003cem\u003eBiography \u0026amp; Memoir\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eArts \u0026amp; Culture\u003c\/em\u003e. De Freston’s collections invite reflection on personal and collective experience, rendered in striking and poetic prose.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"strange-bodies-by-tom-de-freston-9781783789894","title":"Strange Bodies","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"A book full of love that makes you see what really matters, both in art and life. Clever, tender, completely compelling.\"\u003c\/em\u003e - Ella Risbridger\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 2020, artist Tom de Freston and his novelist wife Kiran Millwood Hargrave discovered they were expecting twins. But Kiran miscarried, and thus began a long journey to parenthood that saw the loss of six more pregnancies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDe Freston began exploring his experience of the losses in his artwork, searching for a way to make sense of his grief and of his wife's. He finds representations of his feelings towards Kiran in Ovid's myth of Orpheus, who, in turning back to gaze upon Eurydice, loses her to the Underworld; a story which captures the longing for closeness within a couple, and the intense pain in the distance between them. His search for understanding leads him to artists and artworks from Titian and Francis Bacon to Braca Ettinger and Gerhard Richter. And as the miscarriages mounted and de Freston became ever more aware of the precarious bodily experience that is pregnancy, he excavates the erotic charge of the male gaze, its yearning for connection, and the desires and boundaries that exist between lovers, and between painter and painting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAddressed directly to De Freston's wife Kiran, \u003cem\u003eStrange Bodies\u003c\/em\u003e is an intimate, authentic, and powerfully moving account of a loving relationship that pulses with wonder and insight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46845836034284,"sku":"9781783789894","price":39.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/2513773482823.jpg?v=1758898827"},{"product_id":"wreck-by-tom-de-freston-9781783786657","title":"Wreck","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn artist's obsession with Gericault's monumental painting \u003ci\u003eThe Raft of the Medusa\u003c\/i\u003e, and an intensely personal reckoning that delves deep inside the making of an artwork.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eArtist Tom de Freston has long had an obsession with Gericault's painting \u003ci\u003eThe Raft of the Medusa\u003c\/i\u003e, and the troubling story behind its creation. The monumental canvas, which hangs in the Louvre, depicts a 19th century tragedy in which 150 people were drowned at sea on a raft lost in a stormy sea, when the ship Medusa was wrecked on shallow ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen de Freston began making an artwork with Ali, a Syrian writer blinded by a bombing, The Raft's depiction of pain and suffering resonated powerfully with him, as did Gericault's awful life story. It spoke not only to Ali's story but to Tom's family history of trauma and anguish, offering him a passage out of the dark waters in which he found himself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn spellbinding, visceral prose, de Freston opens a window onto the magnetic frisson that runs between a past masterpiece and contemporary artistic endeavours. He asks powerful questions about how we might translate violence, fear and trauma into art, how we try to make sense of seemingly unthinkable acts, and the value in facing and depicting the darkest horrors.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47428466966764,"sku":"9781783786657","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781783786657.jpg?v=1774496572"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/tom-de-freston.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}