About M. Freddy
Artist Statement ↴
M. Freddy is a contemporary artist who explores the role of culture in socioeconomic change. He paints, photographs, and writes about subcultures — artists, musicians, chefs, and most recently, urban wildlife. His work captures their quiet brilliance, where alternative logics and visual vocabularies show fragments of a future underway. Fascinated by the way cultural objects gain significance, M. Freddy often experiments with how art is seen, acquired, and shared.
M. Freddy’s approach to art is grounded in research. “5 Ideas for Global Diplomacy”, his international relations bestseller on Amazon U.S., argues for the importance of culture as infrastructure i.e. spaces that enable individuals to contest norms’ interpretations and adopt new ones. An extension of his research, his contemporary art practice is centered around creating spaces for dialogue and change.
Artist Biography ↴
M. Freddy is a contemporary artist who explores the role of culture in socioeconomic change. He paints, photographs, and writes about subcultures — artists, musicians, chefs, and most recently, urban wildlife. His work captures their quiet brilliance, where alternative logics and visual vocabularies show fragments of a future underway. Fascinated by the way cultural objects gain significance, M. Freddy often experiments with how art is seen, acquired, and shared.
M. Freddy’s art career began at the Parsons School of Design in New York, inspired by the legacy of its alumni such as Roy Lichtenstein and Ryan McGinley. He was a fashion week photographer briefly during his studies. There, he photographed supermodels including Bella and Gigi Hadid. He studied with James Romberger, a chalk pastel artist in the East Village canon alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and David Wojnarowicz. M. Freddy remains a close friend of the Romberger-Van Cook family and stayed with the family for a few summers.
Since graduating from Parsons, M. Freddy has had an eclectic career spanning the arts, research, and technology. His interest in design thinking, a replicable process to innovation, led him to the tech industry. He advised and consulted for startups, one of which won a SXSW award, and he continues to serve as a mentor at Yale University’s Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking. Dedicated to amplifying positive social impact, he has been a fellow and an expert at the United Nations. His work on advancing sustainable development culminated into the critically acclaimed “5 Ideas from Global Diplomacy”. He has been an advocate of culture as critical infrastructure. An influential voice, he has spoken at venues including MIT, Boards Impact Forum, and the United Nations.
M. Freddy is a New Yorker born in Hong Kong, and currently resides in London. Despite his East Village art sensibilities, he enjoys his life as an Upper East Sider, walking down to bars around Union Square at 1am, and longboarding in Chelsea near Pier 76. His little rebel Airedale terrier Frederic is the inspiration for his artist alias. He holds a BFA from the Parsons School of Design and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He was also a Departmental Visiting Student at the University of Oxford.
The trajectory of his work reflects the critical influence of his advisors: Lauren Redniss (MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and Guggenheim Fellow) at Parsons, Sir Michael Leigh (former Director-General for Enlargement at the European Commission) at SAIS, and H.E. Amb. Dr. Yuriy Sergeyev (former Elected Member of the UN Security Council, Chair of the Sixth Committee on Legal Affairs, and Lecturer at Yale) at UNITAR.
To see his professional bio, see Marvin Cheung at https://marvinkc.com or connect on Linkedin https://linkedin.com/in/marvinkcheung
