New College Art Professor Barry Freedland Earns SECAC Artist's Fellowship
Annual prize is awarded to a leading artist or sculptor from the U.S. 

(January 4, 2007) -- New College of Florida art professor Barry Freedland recently was awarded the 2006 Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC) Artist’s Fellowship. The $3,000 prize is awarded annually to an artist or sculptor from the U.S. who has demonstrated creative excellence in his or her artwork and exhibitions.  In addition to the cash prize, Freedland will have a solo exhibit at the 2007 SECAC conference to be held next fall in Charleston, West Virginia, and will have an interview published in an upcoming issue of The SECAC Review.

Freedland, who joined the New College faculty in 2003, is an Assistant Professor of Art and a sculptor who interfaces with computer technology to create complex machine-oriented objects. His work was selected from a pool of 76 applicants.

Since graduating with an M.F.A. in sculpture from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, Freedland has exhibited in more than 25 group shows. He also has exhibited throughout the United States in national juried group and solo shows. His solo exhibitions have been featured in the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in New York City, at the Manatee Community College Gallery in Bradenton, Florida, the Mobius Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, and in the Anderson Gallery at Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. A second solo show is planned for the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in 2007.

As one of the nation's leading organizations promoting the arts in higher education, SECAC facilitates cooperation and fosters on-going dialogue about pertinent creative, scholarly and educational issues between teachers and administrators in universities, colleges, community colleges, professional art schools and museums. Although the organization represents the 12 states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, members are located across the United States and abroad. SECAC's annual fall conference, hosted by an institution of higher learning, provides members with a forum for the exchange of ideas and concerns relevant to the practice and study of art. The organization also publishes a newsletter and a scholarly journal, The SECAC Review.

Members of the SECAC Artist’s Fellowship Committee who selected Freedland for the current award were Pat Wasserboehr from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Chair of the Artist’s Fellowship Committee; Gregg Schlanger of Austin Peay State University; Andrea Wheless of High Point University; and Barbara Yontz of St. Thomas Aquinas College.