Catriona Trafford Fraser's photographic career began at the age of fifteen, when she
was hired as an Assistant Photographer trainee and Darkroom Assistant by the Reading
Evening Post newspaper in Reading, England. One year later she became the youngest
student ever admitted to the prestigious Plymouth College of Arts and Design's
photography Diploma course.
In 1991 she founded Cairn Photography, her own fine arts photography business in
Fettercairn, Scotland under the auspices of the Aberdeen Enterprise Trust. Soon after that,
she began using black and white infrared film to document some of the lesser known Pictish
standing stones and Pictish stone circles which are a nearly forgotten legacy of northern
Britain's pre-Scottish past.
Her work in this area consists of two concurrent projects: the first part aims to
document some of the more remote stone monuments which are the only legacy of the
extinct culture of people known as Picts who once inhabited the regions of present day
Scotland.
Catriona Fraser at one of the many stone circles on the Isle of Lewis
The Picts were one of western culture's few matrilineal societies, and one of its more
violent members. Feared by the Romans, who built Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall
to keep them north of Roman England, the Picts, in one of the many unsolved mysteries of
the ancient world, virtually ceased to exist as a people by the year 845 A.D., when Kenneth
MacAlpin, a Scot, held dual crowns and became the King of the Picts and Scots.
The second part of the work moves onto medieval Scotland, by documenting the
castles, fortresses and keeps which abundantly dot the rugged Scottish countryside and are
a solemn reminder of the violence which governed this land routinely from the extinction of
the Picts to the early 19th century.
Projected to last ten years, once finished, this initial Scottish-focused work becomes Part One of "The Seven Celtic Nations" Project. This life-long project attempts to document the historical and cultural landscapes of the seven remaining Celtic Nations. These nations (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Cornwall, Galicia (Spain) and Brittany (France)) are the last and only surviving cultural legacy of the once widespread Celtic culture of Europe.
Catriona Fraser's work has been exhibited widely in many galleries in Europe, Latin
America and the United States. Additionally, her work has been exhibited in the Carnegie
Museum in Pittsburgh, the Otero Museum in Colorado, the Museu de Brusque in Brazil
and the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City. She has been
awarded a variety of awards, including Best of Show at the 1992 Scottish Edzell Art
Invitational, Best of Show at the 17th Annual International Photography Competition in
Arkansas, First Prize at the Roseville Photography Open and First Prize in Photography at
both the 1994 and 1995 Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festivals.
As a curator and juror, Ms. Fraser has orchestrated, organized , curated and juried over 100 fine arts shows ranging from being the peer juror at the 1996 Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival to curating shows for various Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland galleries and artists' organizations and leagues.
In 1996, Ms. Fraser opened the Fraser Gallery in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The gallery has already attracted wide critical and public attention and has become a preferred vehicle for local emerging artists and national artists, as well as British artists to debut in Washington.
Catriona Fraser resides with her family in Maryland, about 30 minutes north of Washington, DC. In addition to having a yearly show at her own gallery (usually in November), she routinely exhibits in fifteen to twenty art festivals and exhibitions along the Mid-Atlantic corridor.
