'David Frazer is primarily a graphic artist, a printmaker, who in his work creates a little microcosm, or a convincing parallel universe, where all of the dreams, aspirations and futile endeavours of humankind are brought together.'
- Sasha Grishin, The Age, 19 February 2018
19 March – 30 May 2024
Tuesdays: 10am–4pm
Thursdays: 10am–4pm
Professor Sir Joseph Burke Gallery
Level 1, Gateway Building, Trinity College (Enter via Tin Alley)
100 Royal Parade
Parkville 3052
David Frazer spent his childhood growing up amidst the flat wheat fields of the Wimera region in Victoria's west. He felt himself an outsider, torn between a love for the region and a desperation to escape it.
'I really wanted to write songs – really beautiful, sad songs. I tried, but I just couldn't do it.'
Instead, over the past several decades, Frazer has established himself as one of Australia's finest print artists, working particularly in wood engraving and linocut.
Frazer has held over 40 solo exhibitions in Australia, London and China. In 2019 he won the invited artist category of the Cossack Art Awards in Western Australia and was the Australian commissioner for the Ulsan International Woodcut Biennale in South Korea. In 2018 he won the People's Choice Award at The Australian Print Triennial at the Art Vault, Mildura.
Prior to this, in 2007 he was the major prize winner of the 1st International Print Biennial in Guanlan, China. In 2007, Frazer was also featured as part of the ABC’s “Artist at Work” documentary series. In 2004 he won the Broken Hill Outback Art Prize.
Frazer’s work is held by the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of South Australia, National Library of Australia, State Libraries of Victoria, NSW and Queensland, Monash University Rare Books Library, Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne, Guanlan Culture & Art Center, Shenzen China, Jincheon Print Museum South Korea, London Print Workshop, and the Chiang Mai Contemporary Art Museum, Thailand.
Trinity College's retrospective exhibition All that you've loved brings together a collection of Frazer's work, offering visual form to the lyrics of some of his favourite songwriters and a reflection of the human experience of life, love, disappointment and hope.
Banner image:
David Frazer, Love Letter (panels I & II), 2020, linocut [detail]. Private collection. © the artist.