Surrey artist explores light and colour in Stanley Park
Tim Fraser is one of Surrey, B.C.’s up-and-coming local artists. After attending the Fine Arts Program at Kwantlen College in Surrey, Fraser began his career painting colourful, impressionistic landscapes of Vancouver’s Stanley Park in his spare time, while holding down a job at the Surrey Memorial Hospital. “I would paint in the evenings, and sell (in the park) on the weekends. I was just an aspiring artist with a regular day job,” Fraser says.
“One of the reasons I started painting the seawall and the park was because I felt a lot of people were missing out on it,” he says. “Stanley Park is a different kind of park in the mornings. It’s beautiful and empty.” Fraser joined the Stanley Park Painters Circle in 1994, and since 2005, he’s been a full-time artist.
Fraser’s canvasses have been sold at silent auctions at the Vancouver PGA Open, and the Air Canada PGA Championship Event. His work really took off in 2002 when he took the 1st prize in the painting category of the Arts 2002 Surrey Art Gallery Show. After winning this award, he joined the Federation of Canadian Artists in 2003, and finally understood his work could touch people’s hearts.
“A lot of my influences came from great photography. I was inspired by a few Vancouver artists, and I really get a lot of inspiration from movies and cinematography,” Fraser says. His style mixes theories of abstract, playing with the intensity of colour, shape, size, and dominance, a blend allowing Fraser to find his unique artistic niche. “My paintings always have a hint of romanticism,” he adds. His art has been featured in Alberta galleries as well as in B.C. Now, with his increasing recognition, Fraser has started doing solo shows at galleries in Vancouver.
Galleries West magazine
by Bettina Matzkuhn,2007
Tim Fraser "Seawall Composed" show
Sept 22 to Oct 11, Ian Tan Gallery, Vancouver
The seawall in Vancouver’s Stanley Park has been Tim Fraser’s muse for more than 15 years. The setting is imbued with the strangeness of dreams, like strolling through an uninhabited setting made from a box of plastic toys. His flat painting style emphasizes the strong, elementary forms he uses to conjure the path, trees, and water. The shapes are enlivened by his nuanced use of colour — gentle purple in the crook of a tree, the blue cast of shadow on clipped grass or the mottled red of a maple about to drop its leaves. The sheen of fantasy is in the quality of light, that intense early morning or late evening slant uncannily like the backlit radiance of an electronic screen.
Fraser grew up in Surrey, B.C. and has always viewed the park as his preferred destination for strolls and picnics. He perceives it as a place of constant change, now underscored by the storms of 2006. Many artists have focused on a particular landscape with significant reward, and Fraser is no exception.
Elemente magazine
Sept/Oct 2007 by Garth Paulson
"Accepting Barriers"
Tim Fraser turns Vancouver’s seawall into elegant, minimalist works of art.
When it comes to art, barriers are rarely positive. Vancouver painter Tim Fraser, however, draws his inspiration from these unwelcome obstructions, or more accurately from one particular barrier.
“I find inspiration from (Vancouver’s) Stanley Park seawall itself,” Fraser explains. “By walking around it early in the morning, noting what captures my attention visually and absorbing it into my memory. One of (the wall’s) dominant characteristics is it’s winding curves.”
These curves become the centerpieces for the Kwantlen College alumnus’ work. To accentuate the wavy nature of the seawall, Fraser mutes most other elements in his paintings. Trees become simple circles atop columns, landscapes often disappear entirely and only a few colours are ever used.
“Reducing the detail, and keeping it to simple clean lines, helps me produce a quiet, still, peaceful image, like the seawall in the morning,” Fraser explains.
These simple lines lend Fraser’s paintings a graphic quality. At first glance his work almost looks like it was made with a computer, instead of the usual brush, easle, and canvas.
“Since I started making the seawall my subject matter, my paintings have become more graphic, and in some ways look computer graphic,” Fraser admits. “Since I wanrted the viewer to notice the light and colours (of the seawall) the most, I could then get rid of the unnecessary details and textures in the scene.”
Though unconventional, Fraser’s approach has been successful. He won first place in the painting category in 2002 at the Surrey Art Gallery, was chosen to represent the Central City Jazz Festival in 2003 and has had his work displayed throughout British Columbia since graduating from Kwantlen in 1985.
Despite the drawbacks of focusing only on one subject, Fraser doesn’t see the success of the seawall project as one of those negative barriers. Instead of a hurdle, he views the seawall project as a springboard.
“There have been times where I’d rather paint anything but, but I do believe that if I keep hammering away at the same subject matter it will force me to find new ways to get the idea delivered, as it has in the past,” he remarks. “Most of my thoughts these days go towards effective compositions which place the colours in interesting ways, capturing that early morning peacefulness so that it’s transferred to the viewer, and improving my application of the paint. For the near future, I would like to do all that, with the painting gradually getting simpler and more efficient.”
Province newspaper Feb 16 2007
by Suzanne Fournier staff reporter
Auction to benefit Stanley Park fund
Seawall Painting: Labour of love valued at $6,500 up for grabs on monday
Vancouver artist Tim Fraser credits Stanley Park with giving him the “endless inspiration” that has led to his successful career as a renowned painter of the world famous park.
With the park devastated by $9 million worth of damage from this winter’s freak windstorms, Fraser felt compelled to do his part to help with the Vancouver parks board’s mammoth clean-up and restoration effort.
Fraser and South Granville art gallery owner Ian Tan teamed up this week to “give something back to the park and to the community” by auctioning off a large painting by Fraser of Stanley Park, with all proceeds going to the park-restoration fund.
Tan, owner of the Ian Tan Gallery, will offer Seawall on Storm’s Edge, a dramatic 1.2 metre-by-1.8 metre canvas that displays Fraser’s trademark clean lines.
“Tim is one of our most popular artists and Stanley Park is where he gets his inspiration, so auctioning his painting is a good way for both of us to give something back to the community,” said Tan.
The painting, valued at $6,500, will go on auction monday morning with a set reserve price.
Fraser, 42, grew up in Surrey but remembers family trips to the park, with picnics at Lumberman’s Arch.
It was everyone’s backyard and that’s why so many people have a strong emotional attachment to the park,” he says.
Fraser’s close artistic connection to the park began in 1994, when he would spend his sundays at Painter’s Circle, arriving early to capture the “beautiful, early morning light.”
This fall, Tan hosted a show of Fraser’s work, with paintings priced as high as $10,000 selling quickly.
Vancouver parks board commissioner Spencer Herbert is thanking Fraser and Tan for their “generous gesture to help restore the park.”
Herbert says donations from private corporations and individuals currently stand at $2.7 million.
The federal government is contributing $2 million and the B.C. government will kick in at least $2 million - “but that still leaves a considerable shortfall,” Herbert said.
The painting may be viewed at the gallery at 2202 Granville Street or online at iantangallery.com, with bidding possible online, in person or by telephone at 604-738-1077.
sfournier@png.canwest.com
