Meet Artist, Freya Burnett
In this series we meet artists exhibiting at The Arts House Trust and hear about their practice and ethos in their own words. Freya Burnett: Essence is on view 22 January - 22 March 2026.
Can you share a little about your path as an artist? What has shaped your practice along the way?
I completed the two year MFA course at Whitecliffe in 2024, it’s an incredibly hardcore and transformative process. In 2023 I indulged in a passionate yet painful entanglement with tinfoil. I created a series of large tinfoil sculptures; Portal to the Shiny Labyrinth, 2023, Trash Palace 1 2023 and Trash Palace 2, 2023.
The aim was to subvert and reinvent this household material, to embellish and intensify the qualities of the foil, but in a way that continued to embrace the nature of the original material. It was a cathartic process to make these huge structures from rubbish, I felt like I was tending to this living breathing organism and living in a glamorous fantasy zone. At the end of 2023 I ended up feeling suffocated by the thingness of sculptures, I wanted to feel light.
My supervisors at the time Elle Loui August and Judy Darragh had been encouraging me to experiment with moving image it felt like a natural progression. 2023 felt like a bit of a fight with the sculptures at times.
I began properly working with moving image in 2024, I was somewhat confused because I felt strangely peaceful. Every artist knows that each medium presents its own nichely evil challenges, but for the time being, moving image has been giving more than its taking from me.
I never fully resonated or connected with conventional approaches to spirituality. I’m deadly serious, when I say using projectors feels deeply spiritual to me. Working with light has this ethereal power. It’s whispering, transforming and twirling over the space. Then you just switch the tech off and it vanishes like nothing ever happened. A secret. I love how temporary it is. Music videos can also be transcendental.
What themes and ideas are you most drawn to in your work?
Magic, camp and feminine ecstasy form the heartbeat of my practice. I want to harness the materiality and function of light and liquid as tools to materialise spaces that aspire to evoke sensations of complex tranquillity, enchantment and decadence. I’m drawn to carbonated liquids, they feel alive, bodily and cellular and have these intricate patterns that I love trying to capture.
Can you describe your creative process?
I feel very passionately about noticing. Leading with curiosity and a flirtatious observation of my surroundings and experiences is central to my process. Although I work quite digitally, I’m quite physical and tactical in my approach to the work. Get dirty, sticky, sweet. Collecting and building a world to live in for a while. Using a computer can sometimes feel like one of the last steps. I try to draw as much as I can.
What does Essence mean to you? What do you hope people feel or notice when they spend time with the exhibition?
Essence is an attempt to visually articulate the precious nature of interior states. I wanted to build a nest that operates as its own interior and that invites viewers to seek solace in a visually opulent realm. My young cousins described one of the projection assemblages as a Banana Kitty and another as a Purple Lolly. I love when people notice things in the work I didn’t even notice myself.
Essence is on view at The Arts House Trust 22 January - 22 March 2026.