Asia Freeman



Born in Mexico,  Asia was raised primarily in Alaska, wildcrafting, fishing and making art. After graduation from Homer High School she received a Bachelors of Art at Yale.  She took time off from college to volunteer in Costa Rica, explore Mexico and the Amazon, and live as a guest student at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in California. To learn more about history and the narratives and images that shape human experience she returned to Yale, minored in Religious Studies and majored in Studio Art. She studied drawing with Bernard Chaet and Richard Reed, photography with Richard Benson and Jo Ann Walters, sculpture with Feliz Gonzalez Torres and Ronald Jones and painting with Richard Reed, John Hull, Richard Lytle and Susanna Jacobson, but her greatest teacher was her mother, the painter, Karla Moss Freeman. 

After college, Asia  spent a year in India, volunteering within the Tibetan community in exile,  studying yoga and painting. Then she returned to Alaska. Back in Homer, Asia found a deep sense of purpose in helping to renovate the historic Inlet Trading Post with Kurt Marquardt, and co-founding with many local artists the non-profit multidisciplinary art space, Bunnell Street Arts Center. She continued to work for Bunnell while earning a Masters of Fine Art at Vermont College of Fine Arts.  She studied Multidisciplinary Art and Contemporary Visual Culture with Miwon Kwon, Steve Kurtz, Humberto Ramirez, Renee Green and Faith Wilding. 

Asia has taught arts classes for the University of Alaska since 1997. While painting in earnest she persevered as Executive Director of Bunnell, and mothering her son, Jacob.  Since 1991 Asia has had 23 exhibitions primarily in Alaska, but also Connecticut, Vermont, Washington,  South Korea and Germany. Eight of these exhibitions were collaborations with her partner,  moving image artist Michael Walsh. Asia’s paintings are represented in the collections of the Pratt Museum, the Art Bank of the Alaska State Council on the Arts, the Alaska State Museum and private collections worldwide. 

Asia serves on the Board of Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation and National Performance Network as well as the Steering Committee for Homer MAPP.
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, Yoga Instructor
Honors and Awards
artistic honors and awards
2021 Governor’s Arts and Humanities Award for Individual Artist
2017 Career Opportunity Grant, Alaska State Council on the Arts,
2012 All-Alaska Art Juried Exhibition XXXIV, Anchorage Museum, Honorable Mention
2007 Rasmuson Foundation Project Grant
2007 Boochever Fellowship, Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation
2006 Rasmuson Foundation-Pratt Museum, purchase award
2006 Murdoch Foundation, painting publication in Messages from Alaska
1999 Director's Choice, Pratt Museum Juried Show, Homer, Alaska
1998 Best of Show, Pratt Museum, Juried Show, Ron Senungetuk, Juror
​1997 Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, Semi-Finalist
1997 Stranded Artist Grant, Homer, Alaska,
1990 Ellen B. Stoeckel Fellowship, Yale Summer School of Art, Norfolk, CT,
1986 Full tuition four year scholarship, Yale College

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,


biography + writings
Homer News January 6, 2022 https://www.homernews.com/life/freeman-wins-governors-arts-humanities-award/
PanAmerican Arte International Exhibition Catalog, Germany, 2017, Michael Schaeffer, editor
Decolonizing Alaska, national touring exhibition,  2016-2019, Bunnell Street Arts Center
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 4/9/05
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

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).