Alexandra Frasersmith is a Canberra-based emerging artist, originally from drought affected regional NSW. Her work focuses on contained water patterns and textures captured in cast glass forms.
Frasersmith’s cast glass sculptural work is a mix of movement and growth, rich in surface grains and evocative of nature. She explores the traditional casting techniques of lost wax, pushing the boundaries of this art form by seeking to capture the ambiguous and visceral forms nature presents.
For Frasersmith, the captured water movements are a metaphor for emotional states. The process of capturing liquid textures, investing and then casting them in a kiln at 800 degrees, arrests the pattern of water that once was, and freezes its likeness in glass forever.
It is a memory of the natural, an attempt to capture a fluid element in a state of constant flux.
Frasersmith’s work manifests its imagery from two opposite substances, moving along in conflict with one another.
She sees this as a representation of the life you live and the person you are, seeing the juxtaposition of the person society projects onto you, demanding conformity, and the life you could have if you committed yourself, worked smarter and networked more effectively.
The making process allows her to distance herself from the catalyst of the beginning, seeking instead the closure represented by the jewel-like finished object at the end.
Frasersmith is a 2012 Honours graduate of the ANU Canberra School of Art glass program. Since graduating she has exhibited both nationally and internationally and been a finalist in glass prizes both at home and abroad.
The majority of Frasersmith’s work is now made at the Canberra Glassworks and at her home studio.