There are few painters today who can move color the way Craig Freeman does. In his latest series of large-format paintings—now on view at Freeman Gallery—Freeman continues his lifelong exploration of atmosphere, personal journey, and transformation through light.

These new works, all 36 x 60 inches, pulse with a kind of inner electricity. Whether working in acrylic or in oil—as he does in the exceptional piece Eternity—Freeman paints as if he’s translating something primordial: the raw language of sky, memory, and feeling. His surfaces glow from within, not with decorative effect, but with the quiet force of something elemental—like the sun breaking through stormclouds, or the last colors of day hanging on the horizon.

While grounded in the abstract, each painting in this series is rooted in the real world—not as a place of objects, but of phenomena. In Calming Light, cool violets and shadowy blues converge beneath a horizon of gold, as if night and day are suspended in a moment of stillness. In Changing Worlds, vivid cerulean bands race across deep orange hills, evoking the instability and wonder of a landscape in flux. With Ever Changing and Transformation, Freeman dives into more expressive territory—where form nearly dissolves into energy, and color becomes the subject itself.

The series’ emotional range is perhaps most poignantly captured in Intimacy and Memories—paintings that feel at once cosmic and deeply personal. Crimson fields swell and recede, surrounded by tender violets and cooling blues, as if we’re witnessing the blooming and fading of some internal, private light.

Eternity, the sole oil painting in the group, is a culmination of Freeman’s ethos. It feels like a threshold—an image that is less seen than sensed. Here, two arcs of gold encircle a central void of rich indigo, suggesting passage, protection, and the unknowable.

Freeman has long described his paintings as “journeys of color and light to lift the spirit,” and never has that intention felt more realized than in this body of work. Each piece invites the viewer into a moment of quiet awe—a meditative pause that reorients not only how we see color and space, but how we feel in relation to the world around us.

At a time when much of contemporary art is focused on the cerebral or the conceptual, Craig Freeman reminds us of the profound impact of beauty made honest. These are not just paintings—they are portals. And they’re meant to be experienced in person.

Stop by Freeman Gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe to encounter this luminous new series in full scale.