Warwick Stephen Freeman (born 5 January 1953) is a New Zealand
jeweller.
Biography
Freeman was born in
Nelson in 1953,[1][2] and was educated at
Nelson College from 1966 to 1970.[3] He began making jewellery with Peter Woods in
Perth in 1972.[1] He returned to New Zealand the following year and established a workshop in Nelson before moving to
Auckland in 1975.[4] In 1977 he worked with Daniel Clasby, and with
Jens Hansen in 1978.[4] Freeman was a member of the Auckland-based jewellery co-operative
Fingers between 1978 and 2003.[1]
In the early eighties, Freeman was a prominent member of a group of jewellers who began exploring the use of local materials in contemporary jewellery. Their work reflected a changing New Zealand cultural and political environment. “We were caught up in a historical moment triggered by the new Labour government,” Freeman recalls. “They declared us
Nuclear Free, and started developing a foreign policy that was about living in the South Pacific as opposed to being an adjunct of Europe. Our work got swept up in it and adopted by locals as ‘emblematic’ in the way jewellery can.” [5]
Freeman was one of twelve jewellers selected for the landmark 1988
Bone Stone Shell exhibition, developed by New Zealand's Craft Council for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and shown in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.[6] In 2002, he received an
Arts Foundation of New ZealandLaureate Award.[1] In the same year he was named 2002 Laureate by the Françoise van den Bosch Foundation, based at the
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.[1]
Freeman was the founding chair of Auckland contemporary craft and design gallery
Objectspace, and in 2013 became a Governor of the
New Zealand Arts Foundation.[7] In 2013 he was also the 'featured master' at the German contemporary jewellery festival Schmuck.[8]
Curatorial projects
James Mack called Freeman "one of the guiding lights" behind the 1981 Paua Dreams exhibition, which was instrumental in elevating the status of paua shell from its association with the tourist market to a precious material in contemporary New Zealand jewellery.[9]
In 1983, Freeman and fellow jeweller
Alan Preston were asked by Mack, then director of
The Dowse Art Museum, to select items from the
Auckland Museum's collection for a 1984 exhibition at The Dowse titled Pacific Adornment.[10]
In 2011 Freeman collaborated with
Octavia Cook on the exhibition Eyecatch at Objectspace gallery in Auckland. The first photographic exhibition held at Objectspace, the show looked at the relationship between jewellery and photography.[11]
In 2014 Freeman co-curated Wunderrūma: New Zealand Jewellery with
Karl Fritsch, a touring exhibition of New Zealand jewellery that showed at Galerie Handwerk in Munich as part of the Schmuck festival, at
The Dowse Art Museum, and at the
Auckland Art Gallery in 2015 .[12][13][14]
Damian Skinner Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelry, San Francisco: Velvet Da Vinci Gallery, and The Society of Arts and Craft, Boston, MA, 2010.
ISBN9780615340104
Damian Skinner and Kevin Murray, 'Place and adornment : a history of contemporary jewellery in Australia and New Zealand', Honolulu : University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2014.
ISBN9781454702771
^Skinner, Damian; Murray, Kevin (2014). Place and Adornment: A history of contemporary jewellery in Australia and New Zealand. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i. p. 141.
ISBN9781869538200.