Freya Pocklington

Freya Pocklington was born in Lancashire (1984) and is now based in Hertfordshire. She trained at Edinburgh College of Art (BA Drawing and Painting) and the University of the Arts London (MA Drawing). Her work is held in the collections of the British Museum, the V&A, and the Royal Scottish Academy. She has completed residencies with the National Trust, Cove Park, the Florence Trust, and Chichester Cathedral. Recent exhibitions include the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, the Oxford John Radcliffe Hospital, and the Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize. She has recently completed a body of work funded by the Arts Council England DYCP scheme.

She produces drawings, sculptures, and artists’ books. Her work is influenced by Rita Charon’s research into narrative medicine and Dr Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems Therapy. She layers stories to reflect complex inner states. She also draws on her Lancashire roots, weaving in oral folklore, superstition, and ancestral trauma. Animals feature prominently, evoking witches’ familiars and figures from folklore, to serve as metaphors for stories and experiences passed down through generations of women.