Biography

LaToya Ruby Frazier born in Pittsburgh PA in 1982 received her BFA in Photography and Graphic Design in 2004 at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She received her MFA in Art Photography in the School of Visual Performing Arts in 2007 at Syracuse University.

With influences of documentary style photography and direct cinema Frazier utilizes photography and video to produce sociopolitical work within the emotional realm of the Black family experience blurring the lines between private and public space.

Frazier’s body of work entitled The Notion of Family: Family Work 2002-2007 is a collaborative development between her mother, grandmother and herself. Through black and white photographs and a documentary video series entitled, A Mother to Hold, Frazier’s honest and relentless approach intensely explores the complex relationship she has between both of her mothers.

A Mother to Hold has been screened at the 2006 Black Maria Film Festival in Jersey City, NJ, the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival, the Black International Film Festival and the Women of Color Film Festival in New York City where she received the Producers Choice Award.

Frazier received the 2007 Geraldine Dodge Fellowship Award as the 2006 College Art Association Professional development recipient. She is a member of En Foco. Her works have been exhibited In Syracuse, NY at Light Work, Community Folk Art Center and Everson Art Museum; at Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn NY, the Longwood Art Gallery in New York City and can be viewed on Aperture’s 2006 portfolio picks.

Frazier has worked as a photo editor for Newsweek and is currently the Associate Curator for the Civic Square Art Gallery in the Visual Arts Department of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.