Fiona’s practice explores the relationship between humans and their built and natural environments, and incorporates photography, printmaking, installation, artist books and performance. Numerous field trips, and artist residencies to Maria Island National Park, Tasmania and the Cite International des Arts, Paris have been particularly influential on her work.
Involved since inception, Fiona co-curates and exhibits in Osmosis annually, an exhibition by female uni graduate artists, in dialogue with the Tasmanian environment. Her work has been exhibited and collected in Tasmania, Queensland and New Caledonia.
Fiona Fraser received her Bachelor and Honours degrees in Fine Art at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University and in 2009 graduated from the Master of Art, Design + Environment at the Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania. In conjunction with her art practice, Fiona has worked in Arts Administration for the Queensland College of Art, Tasmanian School of Art, Hobart City Council, Ten Days on the Island and Salamanca Arts Centre.
Artist note:
Inundation (Flood Gauge), 2017
paper, gouache, ink, restored found wooden ladder
225cm (H) x 17cm (W) x 4cm (D),
Courtesy the artist
This work utilises a small ‘found’ ladder, stained black and polished, to form a sort of flood gauge. Hanging between the rungs of the ladder is a ‘record’ of each of Lismore’s major floods since records began 120 years ago, floods that would’ve gone over the current flood levee.
Inundation (Her Flood Story), 2017
paper, graphite, gouache, thread, flood salvaged and restored chair
86.5cm (H) x 45cm (W) x 54cm (D),
Courtesy the artist POA
Purchaser note: papers used not archival
This artist book has its pages sewn onto the seat of a found chair. The chair was salvaged from a pile of debris after Lismore’s recent major flood. While its seat was a rotting sodden mess and the timber had become cracked and warped, it was still too precious to consign to the bulldozers and rubbish tip.
I have restored the chair as a symbol of resilience, and the capacity for new/renewed life, in this case as an artwork, a book chronicling the history of place and experience. The ‘pages’ form a petticoat that shows the extent of flooding in the 1974 and 1954 floods along the Wilson River from Eltham to Lismore. The work refers to stories of women who have had to contend with floods, be it finding a way home through the floods after visiting the queen in Lismore in 1954, or my mother being walked home through flood waters in her ball dress in the middle of the night by my father when they were courting, or the dramas of my sister’s wedding day that took place on a day of major flooding in Lismore.
These stories show the determination of women who have pressed on with life despite having to contend with floods.