Laura Frazure

Laura Frazure is a sculptor and Assistant Professor in the School of Art at The University of the Arts. She has taught anatomy at The New York Academy of Art, the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing and the Tianjin Academy of Fine Art in Tianjin.

Believing in classical ideas about form sense and its communicative potential, Laura models figures that are theatrical and contemporary. In her works over the past decade, she has emphasized “direct modeling”, highlighting form and form development with no subsequent mediatory processes. The sculpture shown utilizes translucent waxes coated with a thin glaze of oil paint and varnish and is constructed on a steel reinforced aluminum wire armature. The final outcome, though stable and permanent, conveys an ephemeral quality of fragile immediacy.

BODILY RHETORIC
William & Mary, Andrews Gallery

Over the past decade Laura Frazure has emphasized “direct modeling” in her figurative based practice, highlighting form and form development with no subsequent mediatory processes. Believing in classical ideas about form sense and its communicative potential, Laura models figures of contemporary figuration linked to historical precedents. An apparent naturalism is offset by her knowledge of anatomy, where ideational invention of form and proportion replaces direct observational reference. Using translucent waxes coated with a thin glaze of oil paint and varnish, the figures are constructed on a steel reinforced aluminum wire armature. The final outcome, though stable and permanent, conveys an ephemeral quality of fragile immediacy. During graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania she became involved with computer modeling in MAYA which she has introduced into her studio practice in order to generate three-dimensional prints, animations and two-dimensional prints from that activity.

The inspiration or generative material for her work comes from a number of sources – literature, popular culture, media, art history, the uses, commodification and modes of presentation of women, the study of bodily rhetoric, material qualities and the study of anatomy. It was impressed upon her early on in her education that a serious engagement with literature was essential. This has proven to be true and has had a profound effect on Laura’s development as a figurative artist.

Laura’s recent work reflects her interest in the conventions of “bodily rhetoric”, which she describes as denaturalized figural attitudes or poses, invented to express ideas intrinsic to a particular medium. The Greek Kouros figures serve as notable examples of a derived pose specific to the medium of sculpture. Her sculptures reference the idiosyncratic, media generated poses of contemporary fashion photography, with the presentation of the body, as in the Kouros figures, lying outside the realm of normal posture and colloquial gesture. Her most current series pulls directly from media images of social justice protests. Here, these naturalistic, situational poses become contemporary metaphors for heroic resistance.