Freya Porritt Wessman is a visual artist, Illustrator and Animator based in Ballina/Killaloe, Ireland. A proud daughter, sister and peculiar being. Her Irish and Swedish family have allowed for a wonderfully colourful and bicultural upbringing. She spent her early years in southern Sweden, out in the country where red barns sit anchored in seas of yellow rapeseed in the spring, the roadsides adorned with midsummer flowers in the summer, and the endless expanse of bleak, frost or snow-covered fields in the winter. The changing world around her constantly fuels her curiosity. Stories and legends of the curious creatures and characters that might roam the land have always had a seat at her table of imagination.

Her later childhood was adventured in Ireland. A land of spongey and boggy fields, of gold light weaving through dark clouds and a rain-soaked sky. Meandering stone walls across vast fields and curling hawthorn trees and hazel groves, growing to the shape of the wind. A land of faeries and spirits, stone circles, sacred hearts and sacred hearths.

The chance to grow up with many talented women in her family, from musicians, to bakers, painters and illustrators. Art of all forms has surrounded her and inspired her own direction.

Folklore, culture, myth, land and family are constantly weaving themselves in and out of her work. Patterns, colours and textures of the worlds she inhabits both outside and within are a constant fuel to her art. She went on to have her first solo exhibition at the Bridge Gallery, Co Tipperary in May of 2024. Where she displayed a collection of ‘Peculiar beings & Mysterious things’