Reviews > G A I L F R A S E R

Press Telegram, (Long Beach, CA) June 5, 2003
Gottlieb, Shirle. Found Object Exhibit, Long Beach Arts, 695 Alamitos Ave. Long Beach, CA

" But you ain't seen nothin' till you feast your eyes on Gail Fraser's latest mind-boggling installation. Consisting of dried, dead or extinct plant and animal life (seeds, shells, pods, grasses, weeds, rocks, eggs, feathers, mold, insects and cobwebs) crammed into five shelves and drawers that reach from the floor to the ceiling, it asks the philosophical/ metaphysical/ evolutionary question, 'Where Were You Before?' And that leaves you a lot to think about when you exit this provocative exhibit."

Press Telegram, (Long Beach, CA) July 5, 2002
Gottlieb, Shirle. From Metal to Print: Palos Verdes Art Center's All-Media Show Displays 55 Works from Various Artists

"The award for best of show went to Gail Fraser, who is represented by two haunting, mixed-media pieces that viewers may have seen before in other galleries. One of them, the dire prediction of 'Rachel Carson's Song,' is a weather-beaten cabinet whose shelves are stuffed with dead fossils, shells, rocks, pods ands plants. The other 'Sojourn,' is a post-office box cabinet containing tableaus in each box of a vessel's journey through time around the planet."

Press Telegram, (Long Beach, CA) January 11, 2002
Gottlieb, Shirle. Which came first? The egg or the chair: Annual open exhibit at Long Beach Arts blends the startling with the surprising

"...Second prize went to Gail Fraser for 'Sojourn,' a poetic assemblage construction that turned a discarded old Post Office box cabinet into a mythic account of history.
Inside of each P.O. box, Fraser has created a miniature tableau in which a single canoe "sojourns" from one symbolic landscape to another by way of ancient archeological sites and famous geological landmarks. The end result is a cabinet filled with timeless scenes of life's ongoing journey."

"...We can't end without mentioning Fraser's other outstanding contributions to this exhibit. One of them (a floor-standing cabinet filled with relics, fossils, dried pods and decaying plants) is aptly called 'Rachel Carson's Song.' The other, 'Writing Colony,' consists of thousands of miniscule beetles that live out their lives on the Screwbean Mesquite in the middle of the desert."

StudioTalk: A Journal for Critical Thinking & Interaction, Fall 2001
Macias, Beatriz. A Studio Visit by Beatriz Macias

Press Telegram, (Long Beach, CA) May 17, 2000
Gottlieb, Shirle. No limits: Students at Cal State Long Beach cross boundaries and combine disciplines in their annual exhibit

"...plant pods dangle from strings and hundreds of snail shells are piled in Gail Fraser's eerie box sculpture..."

The Press Enterprise, January 11, 1999
Devorah L. Knaff. Opposites Attract: Ink and clay pieces fit together nicely in a large exhibit at the Kellog Art Gallery at Cal Poly Pomona.

"...Gail Fraser's 'Finding the River' gives us a glipmse at what might be a riverbank surrounding a small barque that surely is not fit for travel. Both boat and the piece as a vessel here is not a symbol of a journey about to begin whose ends are unknown and thrilling, but of a voyage whose turning points have all been settled in advance--and not by the traveler."

Press Telegram, (Long Beach, CA) Saturday, February 14, 1998
Gottlieb, Shirle. An outside look at CSULB creativity

"...while 'Emergence' - a cocoon-like standing sculpure by Gail Fraser (handmade paper, palm bark, wood, palm fiber, cactuses, wax, paint) suggests a female form emerging from nature."

Entertainment Today , (Los Angeles, CA) February, 1998
Stephen Lemons. 'Outside In' Shelters Emerging Artists

"...and Gail Fraser's bizarre, grotesque (and very hairy) construction of paper, palm wark, wool, cactus pods and wax labeled 'Emergence' sent a collective shiver down gallerygoers' spines while earning raves from all for its powerful vaginal imagery."

Grunion Gazette , (Long Beach, CA) July, 1997
Lisa Buck. Exhibit Finds Bits Of Perfection In "Imperfect 10"

"   Gail Fraser's large organic vessels sit on the floor, almost stinking of earthliness. 'Containment IV' is a giant bowl of sorts, formed of seed pods, acrylic paint, wax and kozo, a kind of handmade paper.
   Using hog casing, a rather disgusting membrane, and snail shells, 'Containment II" is also a container of and about containers.
   Another in the series has the composite texture of birds' nests or leaves decomposing on the forest floor.
   Fraser's masterpiece, 'Finding the River,' consists of a canoe woven of organic matter bounding over earthenware boulders. (The canoe, naturally, is a metaphor for 'life's journey.'
   And the boulders, with their textured glazes in earth colors like lime-white, terra-cotta and moss-green, are a creation nature herself would applaud."