Highly regarded artist Pauline Fraser has been presenting a new body of work in the Pop-Up Benalla Art Gallery shop throughout August.

The work emerged from a period of close observation, making, and research undertaken in Kyoto, Japan in February this year.

Developed across ceramics, hand-printed silk scarves, postcard-sized prints on Japanese handmade paper, and larger framed works, this exhibition reflects an ongoing conversation between travel, material practice and the quiet discipline of the handmade.

Rather than functioning as a simple record of place, these works are shaped by the experience of immersion: walking through temple gardens and narrow streets, visiting workshops and galleries, encountering everyday objects and absorbing the visual rhythm of Japanese life.

The research trip to Kyoto, with additional time spent in Shigaraki and Nara, became a catalyst for a new direction in Ms Fraser’s ceramic practice.

Workshops undertaken during the journey, along with visits to historic kiln sites and conversations with makers, encouraged a renewed attention to restraint, balance and form.

In these ceramic works, decoration gives way to structure. Surface is pared back so that curve, weight, edge and proportion can speak more clearly.

The vessels and sculptural pieces do not attempt to imitate Japanese ceramics, but they acknowledge the influence of a culture in which utility, beauty and reverence for process remain deeply connected.

Japanese woodblock traditions have also informed Ms Fraser’s printmaking.

Working with Japanese papers, inks and silk has opened new ways of thinking about touch, translucency, layering and repetition.

The prints and textiles in this exhibition sit between image and object: they are delicate yet deliberate, intimate in scale yet expansive in atmosphere.

Across these works, Fraser is interested in how materials carry memory — how paper fibres, ink density, cloth and clay can hold traces of gesture, place and time.

The result is a collection that draws together contemporary studio practice with a deep respect for inherited craft knowledge.

At its core, this body of work is about attentiveness: to process, to simplicity and to the subtle beauty found in ordinary forms.

The title, A Hint of Japonisme, suggests influence without imitation, acknowledging inspiration while allowing space for personal interpretation.

Ms Fraser’s practice remains grounded in her own sensibility yet enriched by the encounter with Japanese aesthetics and making traditions.

Together, the works invite viewers to slow down and notice texture, silence, balance and the poetry of carefully made things.

Ms Fraser is a nationally regarded artist. She has worked for several decades from a home studio in the rolling hills of Lurg, an outlying farming area of Benalla.

Ms Fraser holds formal qualifications in sculpture through RMIT (1990) and Monash University (1992), where she also completed a Master of Fine Art by research, which explored sculpture in public spaces (2007).

Her work has been exhibited widely in commercial and regional galleries in Victoria and interstate, and is included in museum, corporate and private collections.

Significant public art commissions include Melbourne City Council, Wind Contrivance (1995), City of Boroondara, four Large Wood Carvings (1997), Albury Wodonga Development Corporation, Feather and Leaf (2004) and Hobsons Bay City Council, Seaborn (2005).

All works in the Gallery Shop exhibition are available for purchase through the Pop-Up Benalla Art Gallery, or by contacting the gallery on 5760 2619 or gallery@benalla.vic.gov.au.

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Monday, 5th January 2032

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