Art & Dreams, Contemporary Chinese Art around the Capital
by Ingrid Larsen, Chinese Art Historian, University of Maryland University College, 2008

Freda Lee-McCann’s Great Wall of China displays the conventional brushwork and multiple point perspective of traditional Chinese landscape painting, showing the influence of her teachers Huang Junbi and Jin Qinbo. In contrast in Cubic Waterfall, the artist zooms in on a rocky section of mountain, and like a geologist conducting an experiment replaces all the usual back-grey contour lines, defining the fissures andfacets of rock, with shades of blue. Lee-McCann’s title aptly points to the cubist tradition and her more recent training in Western-style watercolor.

 

Watercolor Yearbook, December, 2003 by Watercolor Magic
   'Ones to Watch' - 15 Inspiring Stories to fuel your next painting breakthrough.  "Top of the World (Scroll)" Ink and watercolor on Rice Paper, 26"x26" ,is one of the 15 stories.

Freda Lee-McCann : Combining Traditions

    My most recent breakthrough came while I was frantically getting ready for a one-person show. I submerged myself in work; after a while it seemed that the paintings just flowed from my brush--- a direct connection to my emotions, without concern for technique or brushwork. By investing all those hours of concentration, I felt I had learned a new language that I could now speak fluently. I had begun to bridge the traditional Chinese brushwork that I had learned as a youth and the more dramatic Western style of painting. This combination has allowed me to speak about my emotions but with the discipline that good painting requires.

    Mountains have been a traditional subject for Chinese landscape paintings since the 11th century. I have always loved mountains and have been painting and studying them for more than 20 years. For me there is an endless fascination and joy in painting these bones of the Earth.

 

Asian-American art makes fasci­nating exhibit in historic Oella by Eric Miller ( The Baltimore Guide) August, 2000

"Then and Now: The Asian Presence of Difference," skillfully curated by Mihee Ahn and Barbara S. Han, is showing at the historic Oella Mill Gal­lery's second Asian-American artists exhibit.
  It showcases 15 artists from New York, Washington and Korea and highlights both contemporary and traditional Asian art. ...

Freda Lee-McCann shows a number of master landscapes in the classical literati style. "Mist and Rain" (ink on rice paper) has a beautiful, atmo­spheric texture overlaying the brushwork which is made by pressing crin­kled paper onto the surface. In "Trees Along the River," she has whipped the surface with hemp fiber to produce a windblown effect.