MEL FRASER
Biography
Mel Fraser is a contemporary stone sculptor. Fraser has been carving in stone for over thirty years, her body of work is a diverse and multifaceted, carving ethereal abstract and entrancing figurative works, each laden with profound symbolic significance. She possesses an innate ability to interpret the unique idiosyncrasies of each piece of stone carving it into diaphanous veils of rippling alabaster, or conjuring a gleaming nimbus from within the rock itself. Fraser expertly probes at limits of the physical properties of stone to the brink of destruction, examining form, space and materiality with an earnest and palpable curiosity.
Fraser has worked in Carrara and Pietrasanta in Italy, at the quarries and stone yards in Kilkenny, Ireland and has a long collaboration with members of the Shona tribe from Zimbabwe. Her work is held by collectors and corporate clients all over the world and a number of high-profile commissions include a piece sited in Frank Gehry’s Opus Building in Hong Kong and a piece at the headquarters of the GMB Union worked from a 10 tonne block of stone. Her work has been exhibited across the UK and has been selected on numerous occasions to show at On Form, the UK’s most prestigious stone sculpture exhibition, exhibiting alongside Emily Young and Peter Randall-Page.
Through her work Fraser interrogates metaphysical questions from exploring cosmological abstractions and celestial forms to augmented molecular microcosms. Mel Fraser traverses themes of mortality and the relentless passage of time, her sculptures breathe life into languid, entangled figures, expressing a wide spectrum of human emotions, from sensual frivolity to the depths of passion and anguish. With their voluptuous forms, fecund vitality and serene omniscience, her female figures evoke a primordial essence of the human psyche. Her sculptures resonate with universal themes, inviting us to contemplate the profound and eternal aspects of human nature while connecting viewers to the enduring power and beauty of stone.
