Peter Fraser (b. 1953) is a British fine art photographer born in South Wales. He is best known for being an early pioneer of colour photography during the 1980s. A student of Manchester Polytechnic where the likes of Martin Parr also studied. A brief affiliation of William Eggleston was followed by joining up with the art fraternity in Bristol and moved in to the studio immediately vacated by Paul Graham in 1984.
Martin Clark, the Artistic Director of the Fraser’s 2013 exhibition at Tate St Ives, described his work as an ‘enquiry into the nature of the material world and the poetics of the everyday‘. His are ‘found’ photographs from journeys that he takes across the country. Each project has a theme though, such as ‘Everyday Icons‘ (1986), which in part is a study of religion, institutional versus secular. This is not immediately obvious on first viewing and was quite a surprise to me when I read it in the ‘Peter Fraser‘ Tate St Ives publication [1] .
What this type of work highlights are the questions of ‘Why has this been taken?’ and ‘Why was it taken this way?’. Once again I failed to read all of the clues. I saw objects isolated in their surroundings, I saw colour and I was fascinated by the lighting. Clark [1] identifies that ‘Fraser’s photography requires excessive looking and exemplifies the quality of art as a whole by revealing objects and scenes isolating and concentrating on an object. It holds and reveals its truth through its very form and substance‘.
In an attempt to understand the work I researched Fraser’s background, his early life, education and influences.
Fraser’s education was science and engineering based, but no formal Art studies. Having left his Civil Engineering degree in his first term he found work in South Wales and Holland, eventually applying successfully to Manchester Polytechnic. His interest was colour photography but unlike his contemporaries, Martin Parr (b. 1952) and Paul Graham (b. 1956), he had no interest in social observation and documentary. Parr in particular had been influenced by the work of Tony Ray Jones but Fraser felt that this work was too ‘whimsical’.
Colour photography in the 70s was not considered serious and was only extensively used in the advertising world. National Geographic also included colour imagery and it may have been for this reason that Fraser felt that he needed to travel overseas to find interesting subject matter. A trip to Africa unfortunately ended in serious illness, but the visit had already disappointed in terms of quantity of images taken. He put this down to not knowing what he wanted to say about the experience even though he was surrounded by stunning scenes. As a result he learnt to ask ‘Why am I here?’ instead of ‘While I’m here what should I do?’.
Fraser’s first major work, ‘The Flower Bridge‘, was an urban series based around Manchester city centre. On looking through his subsequent projects this was not the type of work he would continue to produce. The subject was a study of routes through urban space and used strong verticals and of course, colour. Stephen Shore’s (b. 1947) ‘Uncommon Places (1982)‘ was also produced around this time and contained similar themes and use of strong verticals in the form of buildings and lamp posts.
The use of a more portable medium format camera resulted in ’12 Day Journey’. This series was the start of what was to come in future projects…concentrating on objects, colours and textures. His idea with this one was to start a journey from one corner of the country, St Just in Cornwall, and commence an unplanned trip stopping off at hostels along the way. The journey ended in Salisbury and the images were a combination of indoor and outdoor scenes. The most striking is what looks like a dismembodied arm that actually belonged to a sleeping youth in the top bunk. Unlike Paul Graham’s ‘A1: The Great North Road (1983)‘, the series does not have an obvious message or theme, apart from ‘colour’. There are some similarities such as bedside tables and fields, but apart from the title there is not a strong sense of a journey.
Fraser was an admirer of William Eggleston (b. 1939) and shadowed him around Tennessee and Mississippi for two months but no working relationship materialised. I can certainly see the influence where colour is the subject more so than the object.
His next project was ‘Everyday Icons‘ (1986) which was the series that brought Fraser to my attention. If I hadn’t been guided to this work I would not have given it a lot of my time. I found Paul Graham’s work easily accessible as the titles of his projects gave enough away to understand why he took what he took. Fraser’s work is surprisingly deeper and more thought provoking. Surprising because there is very little in the frame. The object is right there in front of you, large, central and sometimes at odd angles but ultimately difficult to read.
As stated earlier Everyday Icons has religion as one of its themes. How then can ‘Two Buckets’ or a set of scales on a pantry shelf be part of such a series. The series shows that he is experimenting with colour and attempting to be taken seriously in the photographic art world which must have been difficult at the time.
It probably was not until the release of the Nazraeli Monographs (2006) [2] that an acceptance of Fraser’s work and favourable reviews were the norm. Gerry Badger, in his essay [4] for the Nazraeli Monographs, recollects that it was ‘Hirwaen’ from ‘The Valley Project (1985)‘ that initially left him baffled but came round to see that ‘Fraser had produced a moment of epiphany’ which ‘revealed the ‘whatness’ of a thing‘.
Having looked at the 1985 series, where Fraser revisited the place of his childhood, as part of a project for the Ffotogallery, Cardiff. ‘Hirwaen’ (aka Two Trucks) seems to be the odd image out due to its abstract nature but fits in to Fraser’s study of ‘colour’ and the ‘materialness’ of objects.
There is a lot to like and a lot more to understand such as understanding how this type of work is ‘poetic’. The thing I like about it from a photography point of view is that these type of objects and scenes are everywhere, I just have to notice them. The challenge is to use viewpoint and lighting to convey a feeling or message to viewers. That feeling can only come from within, subconsciously.
Looking, observing and always moving forward is how Peter Fraser has worked for his entire career. I certainly have an empathy with that process and will continue to practice it on future projects.
References:
- Peter Fraser, ed. Martin Clark, Tate St Ives Publishing, 2013
- Peter Fraser (Nazraeli Monograph), Nazraeli Press, 2006
- Peter Fraser Website, [accessed 09/01/2018]
- Eventually, Everything Connects – Gerry Badger (2006) [accessed 15/01/2018]
Martyn Rainbird 