A Popular Vision
Photographer Catriona Fraser Is
Focusing on Her New Business
Some people open a gallery because they love art, have plenty of
money and think the experience would be fun. Others set up shop
on a wing and a prayer, driven by a desire to dance, however
briefly, on culture's cutting edge. Catriona Fraser opened
Washington's newest gallery because of a legal dispute with a
Scottish art dealer.
"I went back to Scotland this past March to retrieve 26 of my
works from a gallery owner who had been claiming for two years
that they were lost in the mail," says Fraser, a 25-year-old
photographer who grew up in Britain and began her career in
Fettercairn, Scotland. "Finally, I sued him. Right before our court
date, he suddenly `discovered' all of my works hidden in a closet
and returned them. Like many artists, I had had other bad
experiences with galleries. But this one made me think of opening
a gallery that didn't treat artists like that."
After looking for space in Charlottesville and Annapolis, Fraser
rented one large room on the courtyard of Georgetown's Canal
Square complex, which is home to a number of other galleries.
The Fraser Gallery opened Oct. 18 with an exhibition of its
founder's black-and-white infrared photographs of Scotland's
landscapes, castles and Pictish stones. Her moody, evocative
pictures won first prize for photography in the Northern Virginia
Arts Festival in 1994 and 1995 and have proven popular at
outdoor arts festivals across the United States. At her inaugural
show, they sold well.
Fraser, who is married to a U.S. citizen, moved to the United
States in 1994 because her photographs, in which the images are
formed by heat rather than light, received a much warmer
reception from critics and the public here than in her native land.
"While my photos were winning prizes here, in Scotland I was
battling the state-supported art establishment just to try and show
my work at local libraries," she says. "Many people in Britain still
don't believe that photography can be art. The level of ignorance is
very high. Here photographers are taken seriously."
Fraser is using the money from the sale of her photographs to
finance the gallery. She would not reveal the initial investment or
operating costs of her business.
"I don't have any illusions," says Fraser, a well-organized,
energetic person who dresses in the all-black look favored by
New York's arty set. "Owning a gallery is the second-worst
business to be in, after restaurants. They go bankrupt all the time.
But I am quite confident. I know how to run a business, and I'm in
this for the long haul."
While Fraser does not expect to make a profit right away, she is
convinced that her gallery fills a niche in Washington's art market.
"A lot of the work in galleries here is avant-garde, confrontational
and expensive," she says. "And, in the end, I think most people
would find it very difficult to live with it in their homes. I can offer
an alternative."
Her plan is to show works mainly by artists she has met at the
outdoor art fairs held all over the country in the warm months.
These shows draw good crowds but are generally ignored by
gallery owners and critics because the art, which can be technically
quite impressive, is usually created to appeal to broad commercial
tastes.
At shows like the Old Town Art Fair in Chicago, there are plenty
of artists showing meticulous, photo-realistic watercolors of
small-town general stores and weathered barns with Mail Pouch
chewing tobacco advertisements painted on their sides. Abstract
art of any kind is almost totally absent.
"My goal is to show beautiful work, technically well done and that
people enjoy," Fraser says. "That doesn't mean boring or simply
decorative. It means nice, different work. For now, it is my own
personal taste guiding the shows, and most of the artists are
people I know from the art fairs who do not have gallery
representation."
So far, the exhibitions have been fairly tame. The gallery's second
show featured black-and-white drawings by F. Lennox Campello,
a local artist and freelance critic. In September, Campello wrote a
letter to The Post about the opening of the gallery in which he
described Fraser as "perhaps the youngest gallery owner in the
capital area and certainly one of the most talented and business
savvy artists I have met in a long time." He neglected to mention
that she is his wife.
Fraser Gallery is now showing an exhibition of linoleum-block
prints by Foust, an artist from Richmond. Her black-and-white
works are small, figurative and vaguely reminiscent of woodcuts
by the German expressionists. In the "Seven Deadly Sins" series,
Foust makes heavy-handed use of some obvious metaphors. In a
piece titled "Avarice," a woman is fondling her pearl necklace
while her male companion opens his wallet, letting credit cards spill
out. Through a window in the background, the viewer sees an
armed robbery in progress. The prints are priced between $100
and $295.
Fraser says she has no set price range for the gallery and has
exhibitions booked well into 1998. One of the more promising
projects that she and Campello have undertaken is organizing a
show to be held this summer of 25 portraits by artists who were
inspired by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Submissions have been
pouring in from all over the country.
"Owning a gallery requires a lot of work. But I'm very happy every
single day when I come here. It just doesn't feel like a job. Pulling
the innards out of a chicken in a factory, now that's work. This is
different because it is something I truly enjoy."
Foust, Fraser Gallery, 1054 31st St. NW, 12-6,
Tuesday-Saturday. 202-298-6450, through Thursday.
@CAPTION: Photographer Catriona Fraser in her new gallery.
"I am quite confident," she says. "I know how to run a business,
and I'm in this for the long haul."
© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
