Dr Marita Fraser is an artist, researcher and writer. She holds a PhD from The Royal College of Art. She previously studied at the Academy of Fine Art Vienna in the Class of Heimo Zobernig, completing her undergraduate studies at Sydney College of the Arts. Marita was previously Undergraduate Program Director for the School of Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art. She has also held the roles of Head of Sculpture and Environmental Art for BA Fine Art; Programme Leader MLitt Fine Art Practice; Pathway Leader Drawing, Painting and Print and Tutor for the Sculpture and Performance Pathway on the MLitt FAP program and Tutor on the MFA at Glasgow School of Art. She was an across Schools Tutor for MA at the Royal College of Art and is part of the NIDA Doctoral School in Lithuania.
Marita is an artist with internationally recognised interdisciplinary practice which includes painting, sculpture, installation, performance, moving image, art writing and scores. She collaborates with movement performers and musicians most recently working with musician Mücha. Institutional exhibition highlights include a solo survey and catalogue with Städtisches Museum Engen Germany as well as exhibitions with Kunsthaus Vienna, Atelierhaus Salzamt Linz, Kaunas 2022, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Fundación Mapfre, Tenerife, Museum of Contemporary Art, Querétaro City, Annex Gallery, Glasgow School of Art. Marita has worked with a number of gallery programmes internationally including, Gallerie Layendeker Tenerife, Kerstin Engholm Vienna, Moore Contemporary Perth and Peter Von Kant London amongst others. Marita was awarded the inaugural ArtReview Casa Wabi Residency Award in 2017. Other residency awards include artist-in-resident at Museums Quartier Vienna (Q21), Saltzamt Linz and Cité Paris.
Marita’s research interests include ‘speaking with’ as a feminist method of practice, the legacies of Carla Lonzi, Carolee Schneemann and Margaret Macdonald’s involvement in the Vienna Secession, as well as methods of feminist refusal as creative practice. Recent presentations of research include Teaching, Practicing, Researching for a Feminist Future for Have Some Imagination: Towards a Manifesto for Arts Education, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art; The Curtain: Margaret Mackintosh in Vienna for Feminist Histories of the, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds Carolee Schneemann’s Feminist Frottage: ‘Speaking With’ Parts of a Body House for Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics, 9th September 2022, The Courtauld Institute of Art. Recent publications include the article ‘Careless Reply’, Careless, Blackshaw, G. and Kivland S. (eds), MA Bibliothèque, London, 2021, ‘Speaking With the School Run’ Journal of Contemporary Painting, 10 (1 – 2), 2024 and ‘Speaking With’ Journal of Contemporary Painting, 9 (2), 2023. Her most recent and ongoing moving image project is Speaking With (2020 – ) explores entangled spaces of feminist thinking and writing through Marita Fraser’s response to texts by Carla Lonzi and Clarice Lispector, alongside material practices of painting and movement, locating the cinematic space as a site to hold the artist’s social and maternal concerns.