Wading Out/ Deep Valley, 138 x 112cm, Oil on linen, 2025
Betra Fraval
Holding Things Lightly
Words by Anita King
I knew Betra was an artist in residence at Bundanon earlier this year, I followed her journey on Instagram. I saw
misty morning walks along the Shoalhaven River, brisk bare-bottomed swims, and the beginnings of a new
approach to her painting practice. The works that continue to flow from this residency respond to the landscape
with bright, open gestures. There is a feeling of letting go, a relinquishing of control—much like skinny-dipping
in cold water with new friends. Working with familiar mediums that include oil and synthetic polymer paint on
linen, Betra has rediscovered a freedom in painting.
Paint spreads, soaks, and diffuses across raw linen. Forms dissolve and drift toward abstraction, exposed linen is
as integral to her compositions as coloured marks. Even in more resolved works like Wading Out: Deep Valley,
2025, smooth, fluid strokes allow the textures of the linen to remain visible. There is joy here. Helen
Frankenthaler once said of her own practice, "A line is a line, but [also] is a color... The canvas surface is flat and
yet the space extends for miles. What a lie, what trickery—how beautiful is the very idea of painting."1
Like Frankenthaler, Betra’s paintings carry a sense of release. Colour drifts and gestures remain open, resisting
containment. Through this openness, Betra 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. In Rivers Edge, 2025, one of the first works in the series, a
levity is fully realised. Water melts into land and the sky dissolves into trees. These initial works were made on
roughly cut pieces of canvas, a spontaneity that afforded fluidity.
Bundanon, rich with history and the legacy of Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan, offered Betra the permission to
explore. In earlier works she painted the landscape, but in these works she seems to step inside it. Shedding the
responsibility of closely rendering subjects, she shifts from representation to embodiment. In Wading Out (blue),
2025 figures surface faintly as if remembered rather than declared. These works gently acknowledge personal,
cultural, and artistic histories while leaving space for what comes next.
Yellow, ochre, and blue weave through these paintings. I can trace the impact of Nolan’s Emma Minnie à Beckett,
Ai nostri monti, 1982—a work Betra has carried with her, tacked to the wall of every studio since she first saw it at
the Homestead eight years ago. What struck her was Nolan’s freedom: the way he left parts of the canvas
exposed, the energy, the simplicity of his gestures. She sensed there was something in it for her, but wasn’t
ready to take the leap. Sometimes you know exactly where you want to go, but it takes time before you can
arrive. That energy now animates her own work. Holding it lightly (after Nolan, Emma Minnie à Beckett, Ai nostri
monti), 2025 pays homage to the painting that has captivated her for years, yet here the figure is ghostly and
ethereal, a memory.
Holding Things Lightly is a turning point for Betra. An opening to atmosphere, to presence through absence,
and to the simple joy of paint moving across raw linen. These are works that hold the world lightly, and invite us
to loosen our grip, to step into the mist and let it carry us.
1 https://gagosian.com/artists/helen-frankenthaler/
Holding Things Lightly
Words by Anita King
I knew Betra was an artist in residence at Bundanon earlier this year, I followed her journey on Instagram. I saw
misty morning walks along the Shoalhaven River, brisk bare-bottomed swims, and the beginnings of a new
approach to her painting practice. The works that continue to flow from this residency respond to the landscape
with bright, open gestures. There is a feeling of letting go, a relinquishing of control—much like skinny-dipping
in cold water with new friends. Working with familiar mediums that include oil and synthetic polymer paint on
linen, Betra has rediscovered a freedom in painting.
Paint spreads, soaks, and diffuses across raw linen. Forms dissolve and drift toward abstraction, exposed linen is
as integral to her compositions as coloured marks. Even in more resolved works like Wading Out: Deep Valley,
2025, smooth, fluid strokes allow the textures of the linen to remain visible. There is joy here. Helen
Frankenthaler once said of her own practice, "A line is a line, but [also] is a color... The canvas surface is flat and
yet the space extends for miles. What a lie, what trickery—how beautiful is the very idea of painting."1
Like Frankenthaler, Betra’s paintings carry a sense of release. Colour drifts and gestures remain open, resisting
containment. Through this openness, Betra 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. In Rivers Edge, 2025, one of the first works in the series, a
levity is fully realised. Water melts into land and the sky dissolves into trees. These initial works were made on
roughly cut pieces of canvas, a spontaneity that afforded fluidity.
Bundanon, rich with history and the legacy of Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan, offered Betra the permission to
explore. In earlier works she painted the landscape, but in these works she seems to step inside it. Shedding the
responsibility of closely rendering subjects, she shifts from representation to embodiment. In Wading Out (blue),
2025 figures surface faintly as if remembered rather than declared. These works gently acknowledge personal,
cultural, and artistic histories while leaving space for what comes next.
Yellow, ochre, and blue weave through these paintings. I can trace the impact of Nolan’s Emma Minnie à Beckett,
Ai nostri monti, 1982—a work Betra has carried with her, tacked to the wall of every studio since she first saw it at
the Homestead eight years ago. What struck her was Nolan’s freedom: the way he left parts of the canvas
exposed, the energy, the simplicity of his gestures. She sensed there was something in it for her, but wasn’t
ready to take the leap. Sometimes you know exactly where you want to go, but it takes time before you can
arrive. That energy now animates her own work. Holding it lightly (after Nolan, Emma Minnie à Beckett, Ai nostri
monti), 2025 pays homage to the painting that has captivated her for years, yet here the figure is ghostly and
ethereal, a memory.
Holding Things Lightly is a turning point for Betra. An opening to atmosphere, to presence through absence,
and to the simple joy of paint moving across raw linen. These are works that hold the world lightly, and invite us
to loosen our grip, to step into the mist and let it carry us.
1 https://gagosian.com/artists/helen-frankenthaler/
Rivers Edge, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 60 x 50cm, 2025
Wading Out (Blue), synthetic polymer paint on linen, 60x50, 2025