Family Portrait 2002 

Scott Fraser made this still life painting, Family Portrait, in 2002 using oil on panel. The smooth, almost airbrushed finish gives a surreal quality to these objects. While the title suggests a familial connection, we’re presented with four pale, plaster-cast hands, each holding a natural object: a sand dollar, a leaf, and a feather. These objects are so carefully rendered they feel almost hyperreal. Fraser's meticulous technique creates a tension between the real and the artificial, drawing our attention to the labor involved in achieving such illusionistic effects. The social context here seems to be the domestic sphere, a traditional site of artistic labor and family relations. However, the detachment of the hands and their uniform appearance suggests a critique of idealized notions of family. The artist seems to be emphasizing the role of craft and skill, in order to question our assumptions about what constitutes a family and the work required to maintain it.