The Stella Adler Center for the Arts presents The Art Of Gregory Frederick: Gallery Exhibition and Performance of Art, Hope, Redemption on Tuesday, June 20th at 6:30pm in the Ellen Adler Art Gallery and Sonia Sanchez Theater. This event is free and open to the public.
Gregory Frederick is a philosopher, artist, musician and composer. Gregory joined Ritual4Return in 2021 and completed his rite of passage in 2022.
From Artistic Director Tom Oppenheim:
“It gives me pleasure unto joy to introduce Gregory Frederick to the community and to present his art in our Ellen Adler Gallery. I met Gregory about a year and a half ago in the context of a Ritual for Return cohort meeting. My first impression was that this was a wise man indeed and he is. I saw him as an unsung National Treasure and told him so. Mr. Fredrick was so full of intellectual and spiritual grace and grit which he shared unabashedly with the few of us gathered in T5.
In time I learned of the extraordinary life Gregory has lived. He fought in the Vietnam war, went to art school, is a multi-instrumentalist jazz musician, a poet, a playwright and holds an MFA in Fine Arts and an MPS in Professional Studies. He was also incarcerated for over twenty years.
Mr. Fredricks sent me photos of his artwork about four months ago and I was dazzled. He paints and draws with a vibrancy that’s palpable. Whatever the subject of his work, each painting and drawing is rendered with a spiritual glow. I love the paintings which burst with energy, color, joy. I love the drawings, many of them of African masks, which contain fire, breath, and ancient ancestral presence. I hope you’ll enjoy his work as much as I do.”