Asia Freeman

Asia was born in Mexico in 1969. Shortly thereafter, her family moved to Alaska to pursue a subsistence lifestyle, working in fishing, wildcrafting and the arts.

After graduating from High School in Homer, Asia attended Yale with a full tuition scholarship. Subsequent travels in South and Central America and Asia inspired her to deepen the ways in which we can exchange and explore the arts as a shared language of a global community.

When Asia returned to Alaska in 1992, together with several dedicated Homerites, she co-founded Bunnell Street Arts Center. Today, it is Alaska’s longest-lived multi-disciplinary arts center.
Education
MFA 1997 Multi-discipline/New Genre, Vermont School of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont, BA 1991 Painting, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, Summa Cum Laude
Employment
since 1992, Artistic/Executive Director, Bunnell Street Arts Center,
since 1997, University of Alaska, Kachemak Bay Campus, adjunct instructor of Art
since 2004, Instructor of yoga in Homer
Administrative Honors and Awards
2013 ArtPlace America $150,000 Award recipient, Bunnell Street Arts Center
2013 Arts Leadership Award – Homer Council on the Arts
2012 Paul G Allen Foundation, Named Bunnell a Bright Spot in Arts Leadership
2008 Governors Award for the Arts, Bunnell Street Arts Center
2009 Alaska State Council on the Arts Career Opportunity Grant
2007 Alaska State Council on the Arts Career Opportunity Grant
2000 Alaska State Council on the Arts Career Opportunity Grant,
1997 Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, Semi-Finalist
biography + writings
PanAmerican Arte International Exhibition Catalog, Germany, 2015, Michael Schaeffer, editor

Communities, Disaster and Change, exhibit catalog 6/14, Valdez Museum, Kes Woodward
  • Anchorage Daily News, 12/14/07 on-line video “Medusa: Installation by Asia Freeman” 
  • Anchorage Daily News, 12/14/07, “Into the Light… Freeman’s new work takes a surreal twist” Anchorage Daily News, 10/31/07
  • Anchorage Daily News, “Shaping a Space,” 2/11/07

Messages from Alaska, Alaskan Contemporary Art, Murdoch Foundation, 2006
  • Anchorage Daily News, “Special Things,” 12/17/06
  • Alaska Airlines Magazine, August 2006, p. 57
  • Anchorage Daily News, “The Fine Art of Buying,” 7/23/06
  • Anchorage Daily News -“Alaskan Artists Interpret Their Environment”
  • Anchorage Daily News, “Beyond Words, “ 1/15/06
  • Anchorage Daily News, “Behind the Scenes at the Anchorage Museum,” 9/18/15
  • Anchorage Daily News - Front page, “Alaska Artists Unique,” 9/11/05
  • Homer News, “Aquatic Influences,” 8/24/05
  • Anchorage Daily News, “Art or Craft?” 8/21/05
  • Anchorage Daily News, “Can Culture Be Stolen,” 8/14/05
  • Anchorage Daily News , 4/17/05,
  • “Dodging Definition, Guest Curator Explores the Evolution of Art in Utilitarian Objects” Alaska Public Radio spotlight April 9, 2005
  • Homer News, 3/17/05, “Homer Artist Curates Anchorage Museum Exhibition”
  • Anchorage Daily News, January 27, 2005, “Open Secrets”
  • Anchorage Daily News, June, 2004
  • Peninsula Clarion, June 6, 2004 (photo credit, “The Sea, The Sea”, painting)
  • Alaska Public Radio – spotlight by Ellen Lockeyer, June 2004 (about Bunnell)
  • Icebreakers, Alaska's Most Innovative Artists, 1999 ed. by Julie Decker-Morris Simultaneous Landscapes, 14, Alaska Journal of Art and the Environment
    “Asia Freeman, Photographic Arts,”4/16/98
    Anchorage Daily News, "An Intimate Insight into Nature, " 12/26/03
    Anchorage Daily News, “Beyond Words,” 6/9/02 page D-1
    Anchorage Daily News, “Complex Show Weighs Body and Nature’s Way,” 2/27/00
    Anchorage Daily News, “Arts for the New Millenium,” 9/19/98
    Anchorage Daily News, “Technique Tackles Technology,” 1/18/98
    Anchorage Daily News, “Artists Bold Vision Transcends Words, 1/9/98
    Homer News, “Emanations; Freeman Documents the Ephemeral…” 3/26/98
    Homer News, 1/2/97
    Anchorage Daily News, 5/1/95
    Homer News, 3/ 6/93
    Alaska Public Radio – spotlight by Nancy Brown, 5/5/92

Curator

International artists at this center have hailed from Senegal to Savannah, from New York City to the arctic circle. With Asia’s leadership Bunnell received a Governor’s Award for the Arts in 2008. In 2012 Paul Allen Family Foundation named Bunnell a “Bright Spot” in the Pacific Northwest arts scene. In 2013 Asia successfully led a neighborhood revitalization project, Old Town AIR, with support from  ArtPlace America. As a curator for hundreds of exhibitions, artists in schools, residencies and workshops, Asia has helped many Alaskans emerge into their own artistic voice.

Painter

Since 1991 Asia has exhibited her own artwork in multiple solo and group formats annually. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Pratt Museum, The Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center,  the Alaska State Museum, and the Alaska Contemporary Art Bank, as well as many private collections around the world. Asia received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Art in 1997. Since 2009 She has created collaborative exhibitions with her husband, Michael Walsh, including Repair (2009), Backyard (2010) and Watermark (2015) which is the name of a movie by Michael and a collection of paintings by Asia (Paintings 2014-2015).