October 2014
Haynes Galleries presents “Zoey Frank: Explorations & Discoveries”
October 10 to November 15, 2014
Reception: Friday, 5 p.m. to 7:30 pm, October 10, 2014
NASHVILLE— In the first solo show of her career, Zoey Frank will present her newest work at Haynes Galleries during “Zoey Frank: Explorations & Discoveries.” One of the best young artists in Realism, Frank spent the last two years searching out new ideas. She found a fresh approach with paintings that speak of the immediacy of lived experience, infusing ordinary moments with layers of light, color, and emotion. The show, which had its first run at Haynes Galleries’ Maine location, will be on view from October 10 to November 15 in Nashville. An opening reception will take place Friday, October 10 from 5 to 7:30 pm. Both the exhibit and the reception are free and open to the public.
At just 27 Zoey Frank has participated in numerous group exhibitions at galleries around the country, garnering praise wherever her works were shown. Her work has recently set off in a new direction, the result of completing a Masters of Fine Art at the prestigious Laguna College of Art + Design (LCAD) in Laguna Beach, California. Frank’s show at Haynes Galleries in Thomaston will be her first solo exhibition and it will celebrate Frank and the new paintings she created during her time at LCAD.
“I knew from the first time I saw Zoey’s work over three years ago that she was a superstar,” says gallery owner Gary R. Haynes. “Just about every piece that she’s sent me has sold and I could have sold some of them two or three times. She has courage to try so many things and to push her limits. This show has so much complexity, energy and drama. She is truly pushing the envelope and reaching new heights.”
The shift in Frank’s ideology and paintings came from a desire to be more inclusive in her imagery. “With my new work, I wanted my process to feel immediate and open,” says the artist. Frank jumps right into her work, painting directly on the canvas and adjusting the composition— landscape, still life or portrait— as she observes changes.
Her figurative work, some reaching up to 5 feet in width like Kirsten, is artfully arranged and crafted. Layers of paint from earlier in the process show through, creating a mesmerizing effect Frank refers to as a kind of palimpsest. Viewers will feel like they lived the same experience and are now reliving it through a hazy memory.
More modest in scale, Frank’s still lifes explore color relationships by infusing bright colors into her otherwise neutral palette. The everyday objects she paints— cyan construction paper, yellow cans, and patterned pink wallpaper— are arranged to complement one another to dazzling results.
A trip to Israel inspired Frank’s group of ancient cityscapes. It was also an opportunity to try one of her favorite kinds of paintings. “I have always been fascinated by unfinished masterworks—they feel open and vulnerable” says Frank, a theme in line with her new figurative pieces. With areas of canvas exposed, these studies of ancient cities seem to ripple in the hot sun, the white stone of the ancient buildings and the harsh desert light washing out details and color.
Frank’s new process is quite the departure from her previous one. Before enrolling at LCAD, the Colorado-native completed four years of training at Juliette Aristide’s classical atelier at the Gage Academy of Art. “It was the old historical painters that made me want to be an artist in the first place,” says Frank, “so I knew I wanted to learn from their foundations of painting.”
The impulse to challenge herself led her to LCAD and on her current path. Painting ordinary objects and places forces her “to make compelling images without relying on the power of the subjects themselves,” as Frank pointed out. “The process is my only tool.”
In Frank’s capable hands, this “no facade, no frills” approach is leading to absorbing images. The ordinary becomes extraordinary in “Zoey Frank: Explorations & Discoveries.”