meet Francesca

While rooted in traditional methods, my paintings often experiment with dimensionality. My work lives in the in between: between myth and memory, seduction and unease, clarity and blur. My work circles around the ways women are idolized, feared, romanticized, misread, and how those ideas seep into our bodies across time. I borrow from tropes like the femme fatale, from family histories, while referencing historical events. A figure may take up space confidently, yet dissolve at the edges; a gesture freezes, but feels like it might slip away if you blink.

Formally, I’m obsessed with what paint can do when it misbehaves. I layer, scrape, glaze, blur, and interrupt, letting surfaces hold contradictions. Influenced by artists like Gerhard Richter, I use blur like a verb: it slows the eye, distorts memory, and asks whether we’re seeing clearly or simply projecting. My paintings often feel like “time jumps,” where past and present overlap and where the future quietly flickers.

Underneath the color and surface, my work is driven by a persistent question: Who gets to author women’s stories, and what happens when we rewrite them ourselves? I want the paintings to seduce you in, then complicate the view. I create the space where soft, electric discomfort of beauty and doubt share the same room.