Drawing is central to my practice, which employs a diverse range of materials, techniques, scales, and styles. Many works combine analogue and digital means of image-making, where subjects are explored through multiple iterations. Beyond anything else, my work conveys the experience of corresponding with things that are difficult to apprehend for being too big or too small, too distant or too close, but also too ephemeral, fragile, or hazardous. I use ‘things’ as an overarching term to include places or objects, materials, concepts, real or imagined. The sea and outer space are recurrent sources of inspiration. My starting points come often from archives and museum collections, but other works emerge from an open-ended interactions with the materials at hand in the studio.
Recent projects have included commissions or residencies responding to the 1815 geological map by William Smith at North Lincolnshire Museum (2021), Leeds Art Gallery’s Cotman/Kitson archive (2017) the site and history of Jodrell Bank Observatory (2016); amongst others. My work is featured in Vitamin D3: Today’s Best Contemporary Drawing by Phaidon (2021). In 2020, I created the miniature art gallery Beyond Scale, which has featured exhibitions by other contemporary artists.
Hondartza Fraga was born in 1982 in A Coruña, Spain and lives and works in Leeds, UK. She has a PhD (practice-led) by the University of Leeds (2024), an MA Fine Art Practice from Sheffield Hallam University (2007) and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from The University of the Basque Country (2005). Fraga’s work is represented by Espacio Alexandra (Spain) and The Art Court (UK).
