Take Up Space exhibit opens June 7

Paintings by Gabrielle Brant Freeman

Take Up Space, paintings by Gabrielle Brant Freeman, comes to Joyner Library’s Faulkner Gallery June 7 through August 15.

Much of Freeman’s poetry centers on women: women’s sexuality, women’s bodies, women’s empowerment. Her paintings reflect not only the strength—both physical and emotional—of the female characters in her poems, but also the idea of women taking up space. The figures are shown as confident in their bodies and in their spaces, and this confidence gives them a voice.

Gabrielle Brant Freeman is an award-winning poet, artist, ECU English professor, and mom of two. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in many journals, including Barrelhouse, The Rumpus, Scoundrel Time, Shenandoah, storySouth, and Waxwing. She was nominated for a Pushcart in 2017, and she won the 2015 Randall Jarrell Competition. Press 53 published her book, When She Was Bad, in 2016. Gabrielle’s art has been shown most recently at Whirligig Stage and Emerge Gallery, both in Greenville, NC, and at the Center for Visual Artists in Greensboro, NC. Read her poetry and view her work at http://gabriellebrantfreeman.squarespace.com/.