BETRA FRAVAL

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"Betra Fraval achieves an atmospheric lightness, like the damp veil of early morning mist that shrouds Bundanon—deep valley in Dharawal language. The looseness of paint mirrors her new approach to materiality. Holding Things Lightly. Lightly holding. Holding on to something like air. This is painting for the love of painting, unconstrained by the need to define. Water melts into land and the sky dissolves into trees."

Anita King, 2025

BIOGRAPHY

Melbourne based painter Betra Fraval has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the Victoria College of the Arts and has held solo exhibitions in Melbourne since 2008 at institutions including Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, C3 Contemporary Art Space and Res Artists, Glasshouse Studios. Her work has been included in group exhibitions since 2007 in Victoria and New South Wales and internationally in Finland, Peru and France at institutions including Gippsland Art Gallery, The Dax Centre, Bayside Gallery, Bus Projects, Bundoora Homestead, Victorian College of the Arts and Seventh Gallery.

Betra has undertaken residencies at Bundanon, NSW (2025), Sanskriti Kendra in India (2009), Sachaqa Centro De Arte in the Amazon Rainforest, Peru (2018), Hôtel Sainte Valière in France (2019) and the Helsinki International Artist Programme in Finland (2019). She has been a finalist in the John Leslie Art Prize (2024, 2020, 2016), the Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize (2022) and the R&M McGivern Prize (2019). Betra's work is held in the collection of Artbank as well as private collections in Australia and internationally.

ARTIST CV

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