Waiheke Island artist joins Awa Art Hub for Artists Open Studios

John Freeman from Waiheke Island is a guest artist at the Awa Hub during Whanganui Artists Open Studios. Photo/Jutta Riegel

Awa Art Hub in Gloucester St was listed as a Whanganui Artists Open Studio for the first time in 2017.

Sculptor Eva Busch and her enamel artist partner Heina Petzold are back on the itinerary this year and they have a guest artist from their former Waiheke Island home.

John Freeman, who specialises in unique ancient kauri sculptures and vessels, is joining Busch and Petzold at their riverside studio and gallery.

"He will be joining us with his beautifully executed and tactile creations for the duration of Artists Open Studios," says Busch.

"He is truly one of a kind, a very interesting man and artist."

Originally from Napier, Freeman says he showed an early aptitude for art and had work accepted for exhibition when he was 8.

"My first work to be accepted for exhibition at the Napier Museum and Art gallery was a pastel drawing and pumice sculpture," he says.

He went on to develop interests in house renovations, landscape design and building.

Freeman began working with ancient kauri in the mid-1990s when he started fashioning couches in a warehouse studio.

"In 2002 I bought property on Waiheke Island where I moved over 100 tons of
ancient kauri to work in a creative environment," he says.

Freeman says most of his work goes into private collections overseas with
the USA, the UK, Australia and Europe being his biggest markets.

He says he is looking forward to joining his friends in the Whanganui for the duration of Artists Open Studios which runs until March 25.