International Women’s Day: Artist Spotlight: Mel Fraser

Celebrating the power and importance of female creativity

Mel Fraser is a contemporary stone sculptor who has been carving stone for over 30 years and she has a profound affinity with the traditional techniques and discipline of stone carving. Stone sculpting is an immensely physically demanding and labour-intensive practice. Historically it has been dominated by male artists, even today most professional stone sculptors working on a large scale are still typically male. Through grit and determination Mel Fraser is highly regarded as one of leading stone sculptors in the UK.

Fraser’s body of work is diverse and multifaceted, from exploring cosmological abstractions and celestial forms to augmented molecular microcosms, traversing themes of mortality and the relentless passage of time, probing at a spectrum of emotions from sensual frivolity to the depths of passion and anguish. In her figurative works, female figures with their voluptuous forms, fecund vitality and serene omniscience evoke a primordial essence within 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.

Mel Fraser has worked in quarries and stone yards in Carrara and Pietrasanta in Italy, and 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.


Mel Fraser: Shop Available Artwork


© All rights reserved
Using Format