Kerin Freeman

Kerin Freeman is a Hauraki portrait artist of British heritage,
living in New Zealand for just over thirty years
I was encouraged to be creative as a child by my mother who was artistic herself. Our shared passions were art and books. Art showed me a more exciting, magical world that helped me escape reality.
Over the years I have worked in many spheres with people from all walks of life. I became fascinated with who they were, where they came from, how they lived, their culture, the various languages they spoke, and what shaped them into becoming who they were and what makes us ‘us’.
I am never without a pencil or paper – landscapes, old beat up cars, houses, but I always ended up finding that it was people who fascinated me the most, and trying to capture the essence of them, in a kind, calm inviting, easy going way. I love to travel and experience various cultures and learning new languages, and want to capture the real person underneath the veneer of what they show the world.
I had not been long in New Zealand when my ideal job turned up. An animation company in Auckland was looking for an animator – it said ‘if you can draw you can animate’. I believed I was the person they were looking for. It was a Steven Spielberg p...

Secretarial College, UK - worked in Mental Health, Drug Dependency as an administrator and front line, and as a Legal Secretary for a criminal barrister.
Massey University, NZ, papers in sociology, human development, adolescence, anthropology and religious studies - allowing me to work with girls with behavioural and learning difficulties and with the NZ police and young offenders.
I also worked in Belgium for 4yrs as a copy editor/proof reader for The European Journal of Biochemistry on scientific articles. Later, in NZ, I worked freelance on medical and scientific and humanities theses.
Art - worked for Freelance Animators, NZ, as a painter of cells, and as an animator - learning from a man who once worked for Walt Disney in America - on Tiny Toons.

I had my first art exhibition this year in January at Carlton Gallery in NZ. The feedback I received was really inspiring, and urged me more to keep painting what I love.
I have entered the Molly Morpeth competition, NZ, and won awards for my artwork - one of which was a skinhead in a tunnel with graffiti on the walls. Later bought by an art gallery in Rotorua, NZ. I have sold my paintings online, from my website, and at an art class where I talked about animation, and the use of acrylics. i love experimenting with acrylics, oils, and charcoal and graphite. Also people have asked me to paint their ancestors from black and white photos.