LaToya Ruby Frazier
1982–
LaToya Ruby Frazier grew up in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh that had thrived as home to a steel mill owned by Andrew Carnegie. After the decline of the steel industry in the 1970s, the town faced a period of economic collapse, resulting in widespread poverty and sweeping changes that impacted Frazier’s multigenerational family. When she began to make photographs as an undergraduate student, Frazier adopted the documentary aesthetic of Farm Security Administration photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Gordon Parks. Instead of training her camera on people and communities foreign to her, as those artists had done, she turned the camera on herself, her family, and the failing town of Braddock.
This project engendered an ongoing series in 2002, The Notion of Family, of which the diptych Landscape of the Body (Epilepsy Test) is a part. In her unsentimental black-and-white style, Frazier here documents her mother’s bare back, framed by an open gown, as she sits on a hospital bed draped in wires. The formal qualities of the portrait are echoed in the accompanying photograph of the UPMC Braddock Hospital, site of her mother’s testing, midway through its demolition. Through this pairing, Frazier creates a metaphorical relationship between the human body, damaged by industrial pollutants, and the landscape, similarly ruined by the mills and their closing. “We are in a period of turmoil and industrial collapse,” Frazier explained. “We remain steadfast although our bodies are deteriorating along with our land.” Throughout her photographic work, Frazier captures such poignant personal moments to enunciate sweeping social and economic issues.
Introduction
LaToya Ruby Frazier (born 1982) is an American artist.
Wikidata identifier
Q19667999
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 13, 2025.
Introduction
Photographer and video artist uses visual autobiographies to reflect social inequality and historical change. Inspired by documentary practices of the late 20th century, her work is a hybrid of self-portraiture and social narrative. Awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2015.
Roles
Artist, photographer, video artist
ULAN identifier
500371741
Names
LaToya Ruby Frazier, LaToya Frazier
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 13, 2025.
