Neil Frazer

Neil Frazer was born in Canberra Australia in 1961 and moved to New Zealand in 1965. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch in 1985 and attended the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, New York, USA in 1986. From 1996 to 1999, Frazer was a lecturer at Illam, School of Fine Art, University of Canterbury until he moved to Sydney where he now resides. He graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the College of Fine Arts, Sydney, Australia in 2000.

In Frazer’s large-scale oil paintings, paint is often laid in thick impasto so that it protrudes from the canvas. Frazer works his canvases on the vertical, attached to the wall, and applies the paint in a variety of ways, including rags, brushes and his own hands. Often in the later stages, he flicks the paint with his fingers straight from the tube onto the canvas, the twist of his wrist creating regular, bright loops of colour which articulate the surface of the painting, erupting away from the receding nebulous tones of the background.