Michael Freeman

Soft Pastels and Pencils

New Zealand

Sensitivity and awareness.

Michael is an international award-winning hyperrealist pastel artist from New Zealand. He has had a fascination with realism since childhood and in his paintings he is always striving to create images that have greater depth and feeling than can be achieved with a photograph.
Michael is in the Master Circle of the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS), a Master Pastelist of the Pastel Artists of New Zealand (MPANZ), is a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America (PSA), and has a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Michael went to Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, to be a painter and left with a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in product design. However, after a successful design career, on his 50th birthday his wife bought him a set of acrylics and an easel and he started painting again. Immediately he fell in love with the freedom of simply producing his own artwork and made the decision to return to his passion for painting.
In 2015 inspired by his wife Julie’s success and mastery of pastel, he decided to give the medium of pastel a go himself. Immediately he fell in love with the medium and hasn’t done another acrylic painting since. Pastel satisfied his desire to produce detailed hyper realistic paintings while also allowing him to complete paintings in a shorter timeframe compared to acrylics.
Michael’s subjects range from his current series of still life paintings featuring iconic New Zealand toys and objects, through - landscapes featuring old weathered sheds, barns, railway carriages, windows and doors, old locks, and farm animals (mainly cows) – all inspired from photographic trips along New Zealand's roads.

Michael has won many awards internationally and in New Zealand, and has been exhibiting his work regularly since 2015.
His aim with any painting is that it will initially catch the eye of a potential viewer from a distance, but that as they approach closer it will continue to draw them in, due to the detail and questions posed by the level of finish.
Although not something that he has consciously thought about – detail and textures are definitely key elements that he is naturally attracted to within any potential subject. It also could be that his design education has heightened his sensitivity and awareness of the importance of textures and details. He always paints what he loves, and always enjoys putting things in the spotlight (so to speak) that others regularly might dismiss or simply pass by without actually seeing or experiencing the interesting details and beauty.
Michael is very excited with what the future holds as he feels as if he is right at the beginning of a new career/adventure – embarking on establishing himself as an internationally recognised hyper realistic pastel artist.

Something which was a dream of his at 19, is now something which he is confident that he can attain without any of the financial and life pressures that would have existed had he started earlier. Most importantly he can now afford to be idealistic and uncompromising and follow the beat of his own drum in the years ahead.

Awards, Exhibitions and more...