Bio
Collaborating artists Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade’s work explore the relationship of ornamental surface and the portrayal of landscape in quest of a sense beyond place. Recognized for developing techniques for printing and painting with dye on fabric; other media includes works on paper, wood and metal. Their collaborative dialogue has been continuous since the mid 1970’s.
Fraas-Slade’s work has been selected for some of the defining touring exhibitions in the field of Art Quilts: “The New American Quilt,” originating at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, NYC., ”The Art Quilt,”opening at the Los Angeles Municipal Museum and "Six Continents of Quilts: the Permanent Collection of the Museum of Art and Design," NYC.
The artist team has been the recipients of two Maine Visual Artist Fellowships and a National Endowment for the Arts/ New England Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship.
Collections: the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Museum of Art and Design, NYC, International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska, and Elmira College. Corporate collections: Fidelity Investments, Nuveen Inc., and the Hilton Corporation. Public collections in Maine : Portland Public Library, Department of Marine Resources Boothbay Harbor, St. Andrews’s Urgent Care-Boothbay Harbor, University of Maine/Orono and the Maine State Museum.
Several books where work is featured: Maine Quilts: 250 Years of Comfort and Community by Laureen Labar, Paintings of Maine by Carl Little, American Quilts: the Democratic Art 1780-2007 by Robert Shaw, The Art Quilt by Penny McMorris and Michael Kile, and Art to Wear by Julie Shaffler Dale.
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The artist team has been the recipients of two Maine Visual Artist Fellowships and a National Endowment for the Arts/ New England Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship.
For a long time, we've been painting places. It is from the specifics of a site that meaning and perceptions are engendered. Places are stories told through the remnants of history and the experiences of residents, through the luxury of wealth, the struggle for existence and the endurance of nature. Symbolic and ornamental elements respond to information gleaned from the history, geology, and culture specific to that place, functioning as visual prompts that by association give meaning to the whole.
Our work combines the tools and materials of folk art, applied and fine arts. Works are informed by textile design, medieval manuscript illumination, the Hudson River School's reverence for the ideal and the graphic language of flags.
Our collaboration is for the most part conceptual. Pieces are conceived and executed by either one of us or as a team. It is the content, intent, and meaning of the work that we share. Each piece continues our visual conversation.
"No places is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends or monuments. Fictions serve as well as fact."
Wallace Stegner
Gayle Fraas and Duncan W. Slade
Resume´
Resume pdf is being provided abridged, please contact us for further exhibition, commission collection or biographical questions or information.