Aaron Frater - Wellington Print

Multi-disciplined Artist 



My current body of work is a return to my childhood roots, filtered through 25 years of art making. As a child I made art, all art, any art. I loved making forms, I loved coloured pens.

In later years I studied art, delved into sculpture & carving honing & refining my 3-D art making. I painted as well, did murals, etc keeping up a 2-D art making practise.

My current works are a meeting point of these ideas, techniques, themes & concepts - that have been with me for many years. The works all use modern materials in a fine art manner. I am investigating form & surface creation with a wide range of materials. 

My materials have mutated from paint & canvas, stone & wood to plywood, fabric, paint, insulation foam, polypropylene, glues, tapes, metals, etc, etc - ubiquitous modern construction materials. The colour & texture in the works is Perspex (acrylic resin), polypropylene, paint, glitter, fabric, etc. Some of the works have been heated, some layered upon layered, some barley touched – all have been treated as individuals, the idea, the tools, the materials all combining in unique ways.

To view a selection of Aaron's work click here

Website: aaronfrater.co.nz

A few questions I asked Aaron....
 
1. What factors in your life do you believe played a significant part in you becoming an artist? 
I grew up in a home where art & books were always there. My step father was an artist & an art lecturer at Victoria University (when it had an art department in its continuing education department). Having his influence till he died when I was 10 was a formative experience. Having a big roll of cardboard & sellotape was formative too - making things was always my passion (lego & plasticine helped).
Later formative experiences were learning to carve bone when I was 20 - stone when I was nearly 30, and plastics when I was nearly 40. 
 
2. What is your favourite colour and why? 
Green ! - I love Orange for its vibrancy, Red for its lush intensity. Purple for its transiency -- but -- always I come back to green- forest green, leaf green, I just lap it up - it is the colour I drink in & it restores me the most. 
 
3. What is your favourite creative tool?
I love tools! Those catalouges that come in the mail - Tool Porn! - I droll over tools. As a sculptor the more tools you have the more work you can make - finer lines, bigger structures, more material you can move - the bigger you can construct - etc - etc!!!
A biro is my favourite drawing tool, I love the marks they make - I love that they let me write & express as much as they let me draw & express. A mallet & chisel is my favourite for stone or wood.  A pallet knife or a big munta brush for painting. 
 
4. What do you love about being an artist? 
Freedom to express, freedom to explore, freedom to create, freedom to show - love, hate, pain, joy, the depths of human despair & the heights of human elation. 
 
5. How do you spend your time outside the studio, including hobbies, interests, sports, family? 
Increasingly - I spend very little time in the studio -I work more, & have been studying the past 4 years. I have always had a passion for beliefs & ideas - so I went back to Victoria & finished a BA in religious studies & am struggling through some post grad study.  I tend to lose track of family & friends - either in art in the past, or in my studies in recent years. Hobbies & interests have always been art & books - again I get very insular left to my own devices. 
 
6. In what ways are you making a difference in people's lives? 
I do so as a teacher - I always wanted to through my art & through my writings - but - my path has been as a teacher / tutor / helper / facilitator over the past 10 or 15 years. 
 
7. What makes you laugh out loud? 
Smut!
 
8. If you could make one rule for the world, what would it be? 
That all the things we think & don't say to each other get expressed in some other way.