Oxbow Img3728
Visiting Artist Lectures

Daniele Frazier

10/28/15

Daniele Frazier is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Mill Valley, California, she graduated from the Cooper Union School of Art in 2007, where she received the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust Award. Frazier was a student of Oxbow Fall 2001.

Frazier's sculptures are created in a variety of media, often including locally found or store-bought objects which highlight the general time, season, or location the works were made. Her sculpture and works-on-paper address the question of how to simultaneously be critical and find personal meaning in popular and consumer culture. Frazier recently opened D+T with artist Trenton Duerksen. D+T is a collaborative storefront studio space in Brooklyn, New York, that is both an open-door studio as well as experimental exhibition space.

Frazier's work has been shown at Guild & Greyshkul, Museum 52, Rivington Arms, Ritter Zamet, Socrates Sculpture Park, and Gavin Brown’s Passerby, among others. Frazier's public sculptures have been shown in Miami and New York. An interest in collaboration and all things theatrical has also lead to many cameos in other artists’ performances and videos.

It's been a whirlwind week, but also a time when I sang the praises of Oxbow to my colleagues. I've been thinking much about how Oxbow is an exemplar of true education. That art centers the curriculum is hardly surprising, and for those of us who work within the traditional educational mold Oxbow offers a gold standard of focused project based learning. Beyond the school's approach to immersive experience are the intangibles which make Oxbow different. The sense of community and of working together, even as each student retained their strong individual presence is palpable. The feeling of warmth and trust between the adults and the nearly adults in the Oxbow community could be felt throughout the campus. The openness of the architecture and interconnectedness of the three studios in themselves speak of the Oxbow philosophy and identity. More than form follows function, the physical attributes of Oxbow have a distinct warmth and invite exploration.

I'm sure that the ongoing challenges of leading and reinventing your school might sometimes keep you from having the time to see Oxbow with the fresh eyes of a visitor, but your steady presence and vision are really visible in every detail. Thank you for inviting me to one of the most profound experiences in my career.

— Ken Rush, Visual Arts Department, Packer Collegiate Institute

The art that goes on in most high schools is usually relatively skill-based. At Oxbow, there is more emphasis on looking and seeing and more critical thinking about what you are doing, the human connection, that personal element. Through art you can begin to understand yourself better. That may be the biggest eye-opener for students. It is almost a preview of college. Get out of the mechanical factory high school education and get into something open, new, and invigorating in a small environment.

— Bill Barrett, Former Oxbow Board Member, Former Executive Director of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design (AICAD)

At Oxbow, I got to try inquiry-based learning for the first time. This allowed me to control the amount of rigor and the depth of research in my topic, as well as picking a topic that I found most interesting. From going through this new process of learning, I feel excited to go back to the rigor of my sending school to apply the inquiry-based perspective to my classes.

— Meave Cunningham, Fall, 2015

A School Like No Other

Apply