Castlefield Gallery Associates Spotlight: Marco Frezza
Posted on 14 October 2025
This month we have asked Marco Frezza to contribute to our Castlefield Gallery Associates Spotlight series, in which current Castlefield Gallery Associates share their thoughts on what the programme offers and how it has been useful for them.
Can you tell us a little bit about your practice?
My practice explores the unstable boundary between stability and collapse. Each painting begins as a system: rectilinear forms, masked edges, calibrated layers of pigment and medium. Yet within this structure, the process continually undermines itself. Obscured surfaces offer an oscillation between precision and failure. Not failure as a deficiency, but as a method – a productive resistance to resolution.
The work is informed by philosophical accounts of the infinite and by the tension between measurable form and unmeasurable excess; where fixed geometric shapes are haunted by what exceeds their edges, and voids vibrate with latent depth. Painting becomes a means of staging a paradox: the impossibility of mapping infinity with finite means.
Rather than offering affirmation, the paintings demand endurance. They resist passive looking and instead create a situation where the viewer confronts the collapse of stable categories – order & chaos, surface & depth, presence & absence. In this sense, the work positions painting not as an image but as an event: a space where material, concept, and viewer continually renegotiate meaning.
How did you hear about Castlefield Gallery Associates and why did you want to join?
I’m based at New Art Spaces Warrington, which Castlefield Gallery runs, so Associate membership was essential — but I’m glad of it because it’s genuinely worthwhile. There is a really vibrant calendar of Associate events and talks and the mentoring sessions are incredibly useful.
Castlefield Gallery is a vital part of Manchester’s art scene and I’m grateful to be on their radar and part of a wonderful community. I did a group critique in the space right back at the start of this year when I’d only been practising full time for a few months. I got to see one of my favourite pieces from my current show on a proper wall for the first time and that was very energising.
What are you looking forward to most about your coming year’s membership?
I’ve been practising full time for just coming up to a year so 2026 is really important for me in terms of personal growth. I’m in the middle of my first solo show – Measuring Ghosts, at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery, and I’m already thinking about the next one. Having a studio at New Art Spaces, and being around such great people daily gives me the focus and motivation to keep moving in the right direction.
Thinking more about away from the studio – I’m coming out of a period of doing nothing but producing work, so I’m now looking forward to nurturing the burgeoning friendships I’ve made with so many interesting people, and meeting new people too – both formally and informally.
Measuring Ghosts is at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery until Sunday 09 November 2025.
Banner:
- Marco Frezza, Stiller, 2024, Image courtesy of the artist.
From top to bottom:
- Marco Frezza, Install of current exhibition, Measuring Ghosts at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery, Image courtesy of the artist.
- Marco Frezza, Install of current exhibition, Measuring Ghosts at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery, Image courtesy of the artist.
- Marco Frezza, 2nd Horse is Red, 2025, Image courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition: Measuring Ghosts
Visit
