Katherine Fraser: The Female Gaze

(MENAFN- USA Art News) February 7 – March 23, 2025

January 23, 2025 (Philadelphia, PA) – Paradigm gallery + Studio is pleased to present The
Female Gaze, a solo exhibition featuring the newest body of work from painter Katherine Fraser.
Although Fraser's career has been hallmarked by her precise technical skills and evocative
backgrounds, The Female Gaze launches a new chapter in her practice of forming emotionally
expressive figures in abstract environments. The exhibition encompasses several newly evolved
facets of Fraser's practice, from new painting methods to cultivating strong bonds with other
artists that manifest in the work. Fraser makes prominent female figures in varying degrees of
form, forever fleeting and unable to be measured by societal concepts and perceptions. As
Fraser continues to push the capabilities of oil painting and traditional figuration, she also
pushes herself to dive into new genres both within her practice and her identity. The Female
Gaze will be on view on the first floor of the Paradigm Arts Building (12 N 3rd St,
Philadelphia, PA 19106) starting February 7 until March 23, 2025, with a public reception
on Friday, February 7th from 6:00PM–8:00PM.

Fraser states that this collection is the most emotionally honest to herself as a painter and as a
person navigating a mid-life recalibration, a period seemingly unspoken of, yet universally
understood among women. Fraser admires and paints women who are actively redefining their
personal identities and relationships while also casting off the expectations set by men and
familial duties. The exhibition hones in on the powerful bond women have with one another,
especially as they witness and support each other in their pursuits. Currently, Fraser is
experiencing this bond in her personal life as she opens up her studio practice more with her
peers, utilizing her community as she shares her work with other women painters.

Fraser welcomes change and experimentation as a vital part of her personal growth as an artist. In this collection, she explores how to paint an emotionally expressive figure without full faces or with only gestures of the arms, like in Carry it Forward. Additionally, she is even overturning her entire composition process. Before, she would begin with a figure and then construct a background but for this exhibition, she starts each piece as an abstract painting. Fraser follows an intuitive process where she channels emotion and mystery into a new world using splatters, swoops, and even lifting and turning the canvas to where paint can pool and drip. Once her colorscape is realized, Fraser imagines the kind of figure that would exist in that world, and how she would choose to present herself. The result is an array of conscious and complex characters breathing, feeling, thinking, and living poeticly within their own worlds.

As most of the exhibition highlights the nurturing one gains through female relationships, Fraser has also found convalescence within the inward gaze. This self-reflection is evident as the artist will be exhibiting self-portraits of herself for the first time in her career and lets go of theatrical settings and props. As an artist, Fraser critically examines the trajectory of her practice and is inspired to apply her established skills to new realms. Fraser invites visitors to go on this journey of experimentation with her as they are immersed in the joy and play throughout the exhibition. She hopes people of all ages will feel seen as the figures grapple with the toils of defining their identity while also releasing the inhibitions that are thrust upon them.

Katherine Fraser's paintings depict moments of quiet reflection and insight, of wonder,
vulnerability, yearning, determination, humility, strength, and growth. She sees a duality in every moment, and beauty in the tension of opposing emotions existing in a single facial expression.
As every person and every experience is multifaceted, every painting is meant to express a
dimensional idea. She is fascinated by the mutability of memory, by the way emotions can
shape perception, and by the way we unconsciously create narratives to understand our
experience and explain our identities.

Fraser paints out of her sincere desire to respect, express, and share the tender qualities that
unite us. Compassionately and with a generous heart, she seeks to portray our continual need
to reckon expectations with truth, and the struggles we endure to feel satisfaction with our
choices. Her goal is not just to make aesthetically beautiful paintings, but to create works that
touch and resonate with the complexity of real-world experience.

Fraser has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States. She is a
graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and of the University of Pennsylvania.
As a student, she received the Thomas Eakins Painting Prize, the Cecelia Beaux Portrait Prize,
and the William Emlen Cresson Memorial Travel Award, among others. Since graduating in
2002, she has received awards including the Lucy Glick Award and the Victor Klein Family
Award. Her work has been published in Studio Visit Magazine, Philadelphia Weekly, Die Blumen
die Frauen, The Fertile Source, New American Paintings, The Southern Review, the Best of
American Oil Painting, and more. Her work may be found in many permanent and private
collections nationally and abroad.

Paradigm Gallery + Studio® was established in 2010 by co-founders and curators, Jason Chen
and Sara McCorriston. The gallery exhibits meaningful, process-intense contemporary artwork
by emerging and mid-career artists from around the world, with a focus on Philadelphia. In
2023, Paradigm moved locations and opened its new 5-story, 7,000 sq. ft. home, The Paradigm
Arts Building, in Old City, Philadelphia. Open to the public, the building boasts multiple floors of
exhibition space, integrated in-house design and printmaking, a dedicated events floor, and art
advisory offices. With this, Chen and McCorriston expanded their vision for the greater
Philadelphia arts community. The gallery is at the heart of this vision, anchoring Paradigm's
overall mission of increasing access to the commercial art world, supporting artists and
advancing their careers, and collaborating with like-minded partners to build a more equitable,
sustainable arts economy for all.

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