With The Female Gaze, Katherine Fraser throws out the rulebook—on painting, identity, and who gets to take up space. This collection is a visceral experience—raw, unfiltered, and profoundly intimate. It’s Katherine at her most vulnerable—and most powerful.
What happens when women take control of the narrative? Experience it firsthand at The Female Gaze, opening February 7, 2025, at Paradigm Gallery + Studio in Philadelphia, running through March 23, 2025. This isn’t just an art show—it’s an exploration of womanhood, self-reinvention, and the quiet (and not-so-quiet) strength of female bonds.
This shift isn’t just thematic—it’s deeply personal. Fraser’s own evolution is reflected in her work, where she paints with an unrestrained joy that’s palpable. Her midlife awakening is a testament to the power of intuition—and the courage to embrace the unknown.
How do creative breakthroughs really happen? In this interview, she shares her journey, the women who have pushed her forward, and the liberation that comes from silencing the inner critic and letting the paint flow.
Your latest collection, The Female Gaze, is considered your most emotionally raw and unfiltered work, marking a profound midlife shift. Was there a single moment that shattered old perspectives, or was this transformation a slow-burning reckoning? Beyond your creative process, how has this evolution reshaped both your art and the way you move through the world?
This body of work marks a conscious shift. My style had followed a steady path since I left art school more than twenty years ago, but in recent years, I began feeling like I was just repeating the same show over and over. I wasn’t satisfied. My first attempt to confront this dissatisfaction was in 2023, when I pushed myself to create a more unified theme and use bolder colors. While I achieved those goals, I still felt deflated when the show ended. I realized I hadn’t been asking myself the right questions.
At that point, I thought: Okay, I need to take a huge step back and figure out how my art—and my relationship to it—needs to change. I had no idea how long that would take. For the first six months of this self-interrogation, I was completely flailing in the studio. I started two different bodies of work that didn’t feel remotely true to me. I couldn’t pinpoint what felt wrong—I just knew something was off. I wanted to paint differently but wasn’t sure what that meant. Would I need to unlearn everything? I felt bound by my classical training, though I wasn’t even sure what that meant anymore.
The breakthrough came when a friend scrolled through my Instagram and stopped at an early-stage photo of a painting. He said, “Is this what you’re talking about? Maybe you just need to do more of this—stop yourself sooner. Think less, feel more.” His words hit me like a revelation. I already knew how to paint the way I wanted—I just hadn’t recognized it. That was my starting point.
With my next canvas, I approached painting with complete openness. I had a vague idea of the character I wanted to create, but I allowed the painting to morph into someone completely different. I let the composition guide me—where the colors should go, where shapes should form. I stayed loose, responsive, present. And for the first time, I was playing.
Shortly after, I saw a video of David Bowie saying that artists need to exist where their feet don’t quite touch the bottom of the pool—that’s the space where exciting work happens. That image stayed with me. It propelled every decision I made in the following months. Each time I started a painting, I deliberately changed something to make myself uncomfortable: I stopped planning, experimented with scale, switched brushes, and began painting backgrounds first—essentially creating abstract colorscapes before figuring out where a figure could belong.
I systematically let go of everything I thought defined me—first in terms of technique, then narrative, and finally, the belief that a painting even needed a face to convey emotion.
You’ve flipped your artistic process on its head—building the world first and letting the figure emerge within it. Is this more than just a technique? Does it reflect a deeper personal transformation, where you’re no longer adjusting to fit a space but instead shaping the space to fit you?
Yes. As I transformed my artistic process, I was also undergoing a profound personal shift. Every breakthrough in my work mirrored something I was working through in my own life, and vice versa. I felt an equally intense urge to let go—both of artistic habits that no longer served me and of personal identities that were holding me back from evolving. This transformation coincided with my arrival in midlife, perimenopause, and the clichéd “crisis” that forces you to question your life—why you do what you do and believe what you believe.
As I sought guidance in books and conversations with older, wiser female friends, I kept encountering the same theme: this is the time in life when you stop caring so much about what others think. It’s also when you start accessing the anger you’ve spent a lifetime repressing—the anger that comes from making yourself smaller to fit into societal expectations. I found that to be true. My desire to create more authentic, powerful work aligned with a newfound personal readiness to take up space. I’m far less concerned now about who I might offend. There’s simply no more time to waste on anything that doesn’t feel right for me.
My work didn’t feel right, so I had to get to the root of it. As I step into this new chapter of my life, I feel an increasing comfort with uncertainty and a decreasing need to cling to an illusion of control. Learning to be present and responsive in my painting has become the perfect way to practice that.
The Female Gaze celebrates the deep, unbreakable bonds between women, and you’ve embraced artistic collaboration like never before. How has this sisterhood influenced not just your work, but your identity as an artist? Can you recall a moment when another woman’s perspective challenged you or pushed your art in an unexpected direction?
I’ve always painted more women than men, largely because I project my own emotions onto the characters I create. But this body of work is explicitly about women. I’ve always been grateful for my deep female friendships, but this year, I leaned into female community in a more profound way than ever before.
A friend and I formed a group of local women artists, all close in age and at a similar stage in our careers. The trust, respect, and collaboration that grew between us was incredible. Beyond meeting regularly to talk, we invited one another into our studios, sharing both our creative processes and our personal journeys. Seeing how they worked was just as valuable as receiving feedback on my own art. The art world can often feel scarce and competitive, but having this matriarchal support system—where we genuinely wanted each other to succeed—felt rare and beautiful.
As we shared our artistic evolution alongside our experiences with changing hormones and middle age, I realized how essential it is for women to have spaces outside the male gaze—places where we can truly witness one another. The women in my life are emotionally intelligent, self-aware, and deeply introspective, which made me see The Female Gaze as not only outward-looking but also inward. I began to understand my paintings as representations of women who exist for and within themselves. This past year, my gaze has been both on the women around me and on my own self-growth.
A pivotal moment came just a few months before my show’s deadline. I invited a few of these women over for a critique. At that point, I had laid out all my ideas on canvas, but everything was half-finished, and I needed to refine and decide what to include. I had been moving away from overtly narrative paintings, yet I still held onto a few remaining props in my figures’ hands. I struggled to believe I could fully let go of that element.
Unanimously, they convinced me to eliminate the props—that every painting was stronger without them. It was a revelation to realize that something I thought defined my work was actually making it weaker. When they described the simpler compositions as stronger, it confirmed what I had been sensing but was afraid to fully embrace. In that moment, I felt truly seen. It was as if they were saying, This is who you really are. This is where your true power lies.
For the first time, you’ve turned the gaze inward, stepping into your own canvas without the shield of theatrical settings or props. What led to this raw self-examination? Did it feel like liberation or vulnerability? And in confronting your own reflection, what unexpected truths did you discover?
As a figure painter, it might seem obvious to use myself as a model since I’m always available. While I’ve often taken photo references of my own body—every painting I’ve ever made includes my hands, for example—I had never felt compelled to paint my own image until now. As these paintings evolved to focus more deeply on the female experience, I realized it might be time to actually include myself in the work.
At first, I found it incredibly difficult. When I create a character in a painting, I can easily channel emotion into them—I almost feel the expression in my own muscles as I paint. But when painting myself, I became overwhelmed by my awareness of my own complexity. I struggled to distill a single feeling into the image.
Interestingly, in the midst of this process, I experienced heartbreak. That singular, raw pain made it easier to paint myself—I suddenly understood exactly what that face was feeling. I also discovered that when working from photos of myself, it was best not to aim for an exact likeness. Allowing some distance from my real appearance gave me more freedom to see myself as a character, which opened up new space for emotional expression.
Your paintings pulse with contradictions—strength and fragility, solitude and connection, longing and contentment—as if they’re caught in an emotional tug-of-war. Do you wrestle with these same tensions in your own life? And is painting your way of making peace with them, or does it only deepen the complexity of what you feel?
Thank you! My goal has always been to convey complex emotions in my paintings. I see humans as infinitely layered and contradictory, and every moment in life as a balance of opposing forces. Grief runs like a constant thread through life, but it intertwines with so many other beautiful experiences. Joy, sorrow, and absurdity don’t exist in isolation—they happen all at once.
I don’t wrestle with these tensions; I embrace them. This way of seeing the world shapes my perspective, and painting gives me a space to process and explore all of those emotions and observations.
Beyond technique, what feels most vulnerable about putting your work into the world? How do you balance personal exposure with the desire to connect with your audience? Do you ever worry about revealing too much—or not enough?
When I first started showing my work in galleries in my early twenties, I would be in tears on the way to openings—I felt so vulnerable and exposed. But over time, that feeling has completely shifted. I’ve come to understand that the true purpose of my work is communication.
By creating paintings that are emotionally honest, I offer viewers a space to project their own feelings and vulnerabilities. In doing so, I get to form meaningful connections with people through my art. While I feel joy in the process of painting, the greatest reward comes from seeing how my work resonates with others. In fact, I don’t even feel like a piece is truly complete until it goes out into the world and finds its place in someone’s experience.
If your paintings could speak, what would they say? What message is woven into every brushstroke—one meant to be felt rather than seen?
You are not alone. My paintings are quiet companions, whispering the emotions we all carry but rarely name.
You’ve built an impressive career—exhibitions across the U.S., prestigious awards, and a devoted audience. But every artist has goals that still feel just out of reach. What’s one ambition you’re still striving for? How are you working toward it, and at this stage, how do you define success on your own terms?
Success looks very different from the inside than it does from the outside. Over the years, I’ve faced a lot of frustration and disappointment, which has led me to recalibrate my definition of success many times. When I was younger, I thought a successful artist was someone who made a full living from their art. I’m still not there. At this point, my life supports my art just as much as my art supports me.
Now, I define success as having the courage to never quit, maintaining a life that allows for a consistent studio practice, committing to regular creation, and investing in my ongoing artistic growth. Sales are wonderful, but what gives me a deeper sense of fulfillment is when someone tells me that a painting of mine made them feel something.
I do have a goal of connecting with more galleries in other cities. In the past, I actively pursued it, but now I trust that the right opportunities will come with time. My main focus is on making meaningful work and continually pushing myself to grow.
Inspiration isn’t always obvious—it can hide in routine, small moments, or everyday objects. What’s one unexpected source of creativity that fuels your work in ways people wouldn’t expect?
For me, inspiration never strikes like lightning. It comes from working—spending time in the studio, experimenting, and allowing the process to unfold. I might have a vague idea or be drawn to a particular color scheme from another artist’s work—something like that might get me started. But the real inspiration begins once the paint starts flowing.
People often ask if I do a lot of sketching, but I don’t. I prefer to dive straight into the canvas. Making an imperfect initial drawing in paint gives me something to fix and build upon. It’s through the act of painting itself that my creativity truly emerges.
If you could sit down with any female artist, who would it be, and what would you ask her? What do you think she could teach you about resilience, artistry, and navigating the art world?
The first artist who comes to mind is Arlene Shechet. I saw her installation Girl Group at Storm King last summer—six enormous metal sculptures that felt both fearless and full of life. She was primarily known as a ceramic artist, so leading a team to create sculptures of that scale seemed like such a bold evolution. The pieces were colorful, playful, and full of surprises, standing in striking contrast to the many massive sculptures in the park created by men.
When I walked through the indoor exhibit of her ceramic work, I got unexpectedly emotional. I thought, This is the work of a mature artist. In that moment, I felt grief for the things that have held me back in my own life—but also hope for the artist I have yet to become. Youth is so over-celebrated in our culture, and women often become invisible as they age. Seeing such a powerful body of work by a woman in her sixties was a profound reminder that we need more mature, feminine voices in art.
I would love to sit down with Arlene and ask her about her career, her inspirations, and her journey toward taking up more and more space—both literally and figuratively.