Jacqueline Fraser was born in Dunedin in 1956 and is of Ngai Tahu descent. She studied Fine Arts and graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland in 1977.
In her practice she includes wire figures, collages, luxurious fabrics, wigs, ribbons, backlit photographs and fragments of pop culture imagery.
In her recent works she has used glamorous textiles to clothe line-ups of female figures and combined them with “pithy comments” that sting us about our fascination for fashion in a world full of inequality and grief. Masked underneath all of this allure are stories of violence, loss, discrimination and despair.
Along with Peter Robinson Jacqueline Fraser represented New Zealand in our first Venice Biennale in 2001 and was also selected as one of four finalists for the prestigious Walters Prize in 2004 and again in 2018. She lives and works between Auckland and New York.
