It’s that visual representation of hardship on a person’s face that attracts Fraser to put pencil to paper.
“Their life story on their face of hard work, hard times - you can see it right in them,” he says of why he chooses the subjects he does.
Fraser, who has seven of his drawings displayed at Eventide Art Hub this month, was born and raised in Trenton, and spent many of his childhood days visiting friends and family in Sunnybrae, including the home of a man, complete with cattle and a large garden, that he now owns.
“I always liked that country style life. I also know what they’ve gone through – hard times and their good times. It’s a hard living, but it’s an honest living. And when it comes down to it, we need them.”
As the farming and fishing industries struggle, Fraser, who has his own hobby farm, sees a need to draw attention to them.
“They work so hard all their lives, and it’s kind of a thankless job in a way.”
The people he immortalizes aren’t his friends and neighbours; they’re strangers from the Internet who will likely never know that their faces are now art, thanks to a Google image search.
They may not have been looking for fame, but Fraser isn’t either.
“I don’t really think too much of it… Because I don’t want to get a swelled head, or an ego of any type, right. Because I’m just who I am. That’s it. I don’t want to be a local celebrity, or anything,” he says.
At the ripe age of “old enough to know better,” he’s hoping to make art more of an occupation than a hobby.
Though he’s been drawing since he was a child, and has never taken a lesson, he’s been immersing himself in his craft since a recent separation from his wife.
“I basically buried myself into the two of them (drawing and farming) to keep my mind off things. I decided that why not pursue both? It’s making me happy,” he says, adding that he also works at DSTN as a spray-painter.
He draws every day, sometimes only able to spare 15 minutes, and is always striving for improvement.
When asked what he likes about it, he quickly explains it’s a question of what he loves about it.
“It’s the challenge, the drive to keep going forward, to do better, and better, and better each time. I mean, it’s just a passion. It’s something I love to do and that’s the best way to describe it.”
His show in the Look Up Art Gallery at Eventide Art Hub runs until Nov. 19.
On Twitter: @NGNewsAmanda
