Wilhelmina Barns-Graham worked on this etching between October and December 1982 at Dundee Printmakers Workshop. Her diary reveals that it is based on a sketch made in 1979 of ‘old oak tree remains’ found near her family home in Stirlingshire. Fascinated by its twisted form, Barns-Graham described the splintered roots as ‘part human, part animal’. Tree Freak was printed two years after her death at the Graal Press near Edinburgh using printing screens already prepared by the artist.