by Carlos Baez

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British Artist in Berlin

     Leaving her home and her family in London, Anna Margaret Rose Freeman is now living in Berlin as part of the city’s new art scene.
     Enticed by the cheap rent, vibrant art scene and slower pace of life, Freeman, 25, returned to Berlin in August, 2006, after spending four months in the city in 2003.
     Freeman’s art is the product of a unique process influenced by “memory, loss and how that can sit alongside hope.” It begins with photography, which is then photocopied into black and white, and made into a collage. The final product is a painting based on the collage.
     “I think having all those parts to the process is really interesting and important to me, because I’m painting about a sort of constructed, unreal world and by each part of the process I step farther and farther away from that reality.”
     Though Freeman’s main focus is her art, she also volunteers at an art gallery while holding two jobs: a cleaning job and a job as a nanny for a 5-year-old girl.
     “Being an artist at a young age is really hard, because so much of your time is devoted to things other than making art,” Freeman said. “You see these people who so easily then stop making art and at a young age, that’s the vital time where you shouldn’t stop…I think its all about balance.”
     Instead of giving up like many do, Freeman is beginning to expand her work by focusing more on her collages and experimenting with different shapes and installation pieces. However, she says that painting will always be part of her work.
     “A lot of my exploration and discovery comes from just using paint and I don’t want to lose that,” Freeman says.