Freda Surgenor

Since coming to Australia in 1982 Freda has established herself through solo exhibitions and group shows as a highly respected watercolour painter. In 1990 her painting “Backyard” and “Backyard Pool” toured Australia in the prestigious National Exhibition - Portrait of Australia. In 1994 “Dockscape” was selected and hung in the Salon de Refuses at the S.H. Ervin Gallery. Freda’s painting “Sweet Indulgence” was included as a finalist in the Australian Artist’s new magazine Water Colour Annual ’97.

​

A multi-award-winning artist, including the Mosman Art Prize and awards at the Royal Easter Show, she was approached by the print distributors Art Throughout Australia with a view to reproducing her work. There are now three of her reproductions in circulation. Freda has been doing Life Drawing for many years and is now convenor of her own life drawing sketch group. She had taught life drawing workshops for both the St. George Art Society and for Art In Action - an art learning experience run by the Combined Art Societies of Sydney at the Meroo Conference Centre, Kurrajong in May every year.

 

Freda, who has always been interested in people, both at work and play, demonstrates a high level of excellence using vibrant colours to depict a great variety of subjects from landscapes through cityscapes, still-life, floral portraiture, life painting and underwater scenes brought to life through her love of SCUBA Diving. Freda learned to dive at Aquatic Explorers Cronulla, with her husband and daughter eighteen months ago and after doing her Advanced course gained the “Underwater Photographer” specialty with the same dive school, and has been doing marine paintings using her own photos as reference material.

 

Being dedicated to her work, when Freda is not painting she is visualising and dreaming about painting. Believing that a good draughtsmanship is the basis for any successful painting - which means, Freda never stops drawing.