Background
Fraser was born in 1956 in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Fraser was born in 1956 in Dunedin, New Zealand.
She studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland from 1974 to 1977.
Fraser"s early work involved installations, inside gallery spaces and in outdoor environments, where she used natural and artificial materials which were woven, plaited, stretched and tied into delicate constructions. Art historian Anne Kirker compared her work from the 1970s and 1980s to ‘three-dimensional drawings in space’. From early in her career Fraser was included in significant exhibitions, including the Mildura Sculpture Triennial (Mildura, Australia, 1978).
The 1979 Biennale of Sydney.
ANZART, the first Australia-New Zealand artist exchange, (Christchurch, 1981). Perspecta 1986 (Art Gallery of New South Wales).
NZXI (Auckland City Art Gallery. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
And Contemporary Art Institute, Brisbane, 1988) In 1992 Fraser lived and worked in Avize, France, as the Moët et Chandon Fellow.On her return she made the site-specific work He Tohu: The New Zealand Room for the opening of City Gallery Wellington in its Civic Square location.
In 1997 Fraser created the major installation Te Ara a Hine for the opening of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. In 2001 Fraser, along with Peter Robinson, represented New Zealand in its first participation at the Venice Biennale. Fraser"s installation work, A Demure Portrait of the Artist Strip Searched with 11 Details of Bi-Polar Disorder, is now in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Fraser’s work of the 1980s and 1990s was often discussed in contemporary art criticism and theory in terms of identity and cultural politics, and for links to her Māori heritage.
From 2000 she has purposefully recast her career and work in an international framework, living and working in Paris and New New York Fraser"s recent work, such as THE MAKING OF THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE 2012 (City Gallery Wellington, 2011), THE MAKING OF AMERICAN GANGSTER 2012 (Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland, 2012) and THE MAKING OF THE CIAO MANHATTAN TAPES 2013 (Adam Art Gallery, 2013), include collages in which clippings from magazines are mixed with other materials, such as gold foil, plastic, and wood veneer.
These collages are sometimes incorporated into multimedia installations in the gallery spaces, mixed with theatrical lighting, video projections, designer furniture, and cut-out figures, accompanied by soundtracks made from contemporary rap music, including Nicki Minaj and A$Associated Press Rocky. Francis Pound, Exhibitions: Dunedin, Art New Zealand, northern
12, Winter 1979, accessed 2 January 2015 Neil Rowe, Twenty One Sculptors in Masterton, Art New Zealand, northern
16 Winter 1980, accessed 2 January 2015 Barbara Strathdee, Women Artists At The F1 New Zealand Sculpture Project, Art New Zealand, northern 26, Autumn 1983, accessed 26 June 2015 Megan Dunn, Prospect Upstairs, Eye Contact, 19 December 2011, accessed 2 January 2015 Peter Ireland, Dark, Eye Contact, 11 June 2013, accessed 2 January 2015 Robert Leonard, Unnerved: The New Zealand Project, Eyeline, northern 73, 2011 accessed 26 June 2015.