What if a painting could hold the actual substance of a mountain rather than simply capture its appearance? For South African-born artist Jonathan Freemantle, that idea sits at the heart of a practice that challenges how we see, experience and relate to the natural world.
Spotlighted by Gallery MOMO, Freemantle is building a distinctive artistic language from mountain rocks, fallen timber, natural indigo and ochre. Instead of treating landscapes as distant scenery, he brings their physical materials into his paintings and sculptures, creating work that connects the environment to the human body, memory and time.
Born in Cape Town in 1978 and now based in Edinburgh, Freemantle represents a compelling connection between South African creative roots and international contemporary art.
When the Landscape Becomes the Artwork
In a world where nature is increasingly experienced through photographs, screens and carefully curated travel content, Freemantle offers a different perspective: what if we could experience a place through its actual material presence?
His process begins outside the studio. He collects rocks and other natural materials from the landscapes that inform his work, grinding them by hand to produce pigments. The resulting paintings carry something of the places from which their materials originate.
This approach shifts the relationship between artist, artwork and environment. A mountain is no longer simply a subject to reproduce on canvas. Its geological substance becomes part of the finished piece.
For audiences interested in sustainability, material experimentation and the evolving boundaries of art and design, this process opens up questions about where art comes from and what it means to represent the natural world.
Freemantle describes his practice as an attempt to dissolve the line between his body and nature, positioning the human experience as part of a much larger ecological story.
A South African Creative Voice With Global Reach
Freemantle’s journey reflects the value of artistic discipline alongside experimentation. At just 17, he was selected as one of five students worldwide for a five-year apprenticeship at St Oswald’s Academy in London, where he studied traditional drawing, painting, sculpture and geometry.
That foundation has supported an international career spanning exhibitions in Cape Town, Johannesburg, London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona and Edinburgh.
His relationship with Gallery MOMO includes the solo exhibitions Spirit Matter in 2022 and The Fallen Tree in 2024. His work also features in Totemic at Messums Gallery in London and Exploded View, presented with the Nirox Foundation and BlackBrick in Cape Town in 2026.
Beyond his own studio, Freemantle has contributed to the broader creative landscape. He established the painting department at The Art Academy in London in 2002, published Anatomy Made Simple for Artists in 2004 and co-founded the Edinburgh International Fashion Festival in 2012. From 2015 to 2019, he also co-directed Johannesburg’s Hazard Gallery.
His career illustrates how artistic influence can extend beyond individual works into education, cultural programming and the spaces that help other creatives develop.
Six Works Find a Permanent Home in Poland
One of the most significant milestones in Freemantle’s career came in 2026, when all six works from his 2022 exhibition A Mountain is Harder to Climb Than You Think were acquired by Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, Poland, for its permanent collection.
The works now sit within an institutional collection that includes pieces by influential artists such as Fernand Léger, Max Ernst, Hans Arp, Joseph Beuys, Lawrence Weiner and Christian Boltanski.
Additional recognition comes from the acquisition of his work by acclaimed Michelin-starred chef Yannick Alléno for Pavyllon Lyon in France. Freemantle’s work is also held by the Nirox Foundation, the Demarco Foundation Archive and the private collection of HM King Charles III.
These milestones demonstrate how an artist’s deeply personal relationship with the environment can resonate across different countries, disciplines and collecting communities.
Rethinking Our Relationship With Nature
Through its spotlight on Freemantle, Gallery MOMO brings attention to an artistic practice that encourages audiences to look beyond the finished image and consider the materials, labour and landscapes behind it.
His work invites a more intimate relationship with the environment, one in which nature is not merely something to admire from a distance but something we are physically and historically connected to.
For South African audiences, his journey also offers a reminder that creative perspectives shaped by local experience can travel internationally without losing their connection to the questions that first inspired them.
Ultimately, Freemantle’s work asks us to reconsider the boundaries between art and nature, and between the places we inhabit and the identities we carry with us.
