My work explores social and cultural issues surrounding our relationship with the natural environment through the dismantling and rebuilding of materials relating to visual culture. Utilizing landscape as a wide-ranging and reoccurring thematic reference point, my work combines painting, collage and assemblage to create hybrid entities, questioning the notion of memory, identity and place. Through an analogue, theatrical approach to the use of paper as both a substrate and a construction material, magazines and found materials undergo a value transformation, alluding to our relationship with beauty, consumption and desire.
Through the process of acquisition and elimination I explore cycles, both in nature and in artistic methodology, encouraging me to develop mechanisms of working that emphasize recycling as an act of regeneration. The dissolution of boundaries is a recurrent theme in my work. Collecting, collating and categorizing materials and subject matter allows an emotional distance to be achieved that balances the over-stimulation of image overload.
Through the process of acquisition and elimination I explore cycles, both in nature and in artistic methodology, encouraging me to develop mechanisms of working that emphasize recycling as an act of regeneration. The dissolution of boundaries is a recurrent theme in my work. Collecting, collating and categorizing materials and subject matter allows an emotional distance to be achieved that balances the over-stimulation of image overload.
biography
Nina Fraser (b.1984) is a multidisciplinary artist from Hertfordshire, UK, living and working in Lisbon, Portugal. Her graduation in BA Textile Art (Winchester School of Art, Hampshire, UK) in 2006 rooted her work practice in material exploration, combining painting, collage and assemblage/sculpture to disrupt visual narrative and visually embody her surroundings.
Since 2013 she has actively participated in international collective exhibitions (UK, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Ireland, Belgium, and USA), and solo exhibitions (UK, Portugal and Poland) - most recently TAXIS DERMA at the Museum of Natural Science and History in Lisbon. Her work is represented in institutional and private collections in UK, USA, Germany, Australia, Poland and Portugal, including Colecção Figueiredo Ribeiro in Abrantes, Portugal. In 2020 her work was selected by jury for the Grupo IMPRESSA collection in Lisbon, Portugal. Her collages have been featured in magazines and books in USA, Italy, UK, Spain and Portugal, including; "Collage by Women, 50 Essential Contemporary Artists" edited by Promopress, in 2019.
Nina is an active member of Atelier Concorde, an artists studio collective and association in Lisbon, Portugal. She is co-producer of online cultural programme SUPERSONIC, sponsored by Lisbon County Council, that will launch in October 2020. She was co-founding director of The Art House Southampton from 2008 - 2014, a non-profit arts community venue in Southampton, UK.
Nina is an active member of Atelier Concorde, an artists studio collective and association in Lisbon, Portugal. She is co-producer of online cultural programme SUPERSONIC, sponsored by Lisbon County Council, that will launch in October 2020. She was co-founding director of The Art House Southampton from 2008 - 2014, a non-profit arts community venue in Southampton, UK.
email: hello@ninafraser.co.uk