In the early 90's, Dawn Frasier returned from living on the beach in Fiji, filled with inspiration. Faced once again with civilization, she spent all of her time making her immediate world as tiki as possible. She rebuilt her first vintage Volkswagen bus, turned her house into a tiki modern hut, made her own clothes out of thrifted Hawaiian print mumus, screen printed tapa designs on t-shirts and made her own tiki mug molds. She managed to get solo art exhibits here and there, and in 1995, one of these put her in touch with a guy named Otto Von Stroheim. He invited her to come and show her pieces at an event in Los Angeles called EXOTICON. Later, she was asked to join a small group show in San Francisco for a Dionysus CD /Tiki News release party with two SoCal artists, Bosko and Shag. This was the first group show of the tiki revival scene.
Fast Forward 25+ years and she's still working on perfecting her tiki modern vision. She's designed many tiki modern interiors and painted several award winning art cars. She's worked as a production studio artist for a Seattle company called Party Partners where she made vintage styled party favors for the likes of Martha Stewart Living, Country Living Magazine and R Crumb. Through the years, she's continued to paint, design, sew and build. Her paintings have been included in Tiki News, Taboo the Art of Tiki, Tiki Art Now 3, Tiki Magazine and most recently Sven Kirsten's Tiki Pop exhibit in Paris (and the companion book by Taschen). She's shown in galleries around the world, including Tokyo, Paris, San Diego, Palm Springs, San Francisco, London, Miami, Ft Lauderdale, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle. She's been included as a contributing artist in several recurring events, including Tiki Oasis, Hukilau, Tiki Caliente, Tiki Kon, and Mojave Oasis.
Currently she works from her home studio in Seattle on all of her Sophista-Tiki lines which include: Sophista-Tiki fabrics (available from Spoonflower), Sophista-Tiki Togs, Cocktail Party Handbags, Havaiki Handbags, Dawncraft, and RUGXOTICA.