A Life In Art

Olivia Fraser

Listen on

Episode notes

Olivia Fraser is a contemporary British artist, who for the last 30 years has lived in India. Olivia has immersed herself in Indian culture, seeking not just to paint Indian scenes, but to fully understand and appreciate the myriad of ways of seeing in this vast country, creating a hybrid aesthetic of East and West. In 2005 she studied traditional miniature painting in Jaipur, which transformed the way she worked and looked at the world around her. 

In this episode we talk about her inspirations, as well as the lasting impression the work of her ancestor, James Bailley Fraser, has left on her.

Olivia shares the range of sources she draws on in her work, and also ‘decodes’ one of her paintings for us, helping to reveal its secrets.

In 2019 Harper Collins published a book on her work, titled ‘The Journey Within’. This features nearly all the works painted by Olivia in the last thirty years. Copies of this are available from the gallery.

You can follow Olivia on Instagram @oliviafraserart. You can see some of the works mentioned in this episode, as well as the references mentioned by Olivia on our podcast and gallery Instagram pages @alifeinart and @grosvenorgallery. Olivia’s work can also be seen on our website www.grosvenorgallery.com. Olivia teaches miniature painting workshops in Jaipur once a year. Details of those classes are available on her website www.oliviafraser.com 

An exhibition of Olivia’s paintings will take place at Grosvenor Gallery at the beginning of August 2020. Please check our website, or email [email protected] to receive details.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please do subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen. We’ll be back with another episode very soon.