Francis Beaty ( American, b. 1949) born in Abington, PA is a contemporary installation artist, painter and sculptor known for her interdisciplinary work and introspective style. Her works incorporate found and constructed elements with a unique conceptual inventiveness. She challenges and expands possibilities of the abstraction by making social and political commentaries. Her 30+yr career in the building trades provided her the framework and passion to build architecturally inspired installations. Her works are created in motion, bit by bit, and gradually become assembled into a sculpture or installation. Her process is influenced by improvisation and intuition. Francis’s participation in numerous residencies has allowed her to flex her creative muscles and dive deep within herself to demonstrate her vision of beauty that can be found almost anywhere.
Francis’s first large scale installation “The Hatching” was a community engagement piece created in an empty gallery space during Allentown, PA’ s city wide renaissance in 2017. Her membership in the Global Art Project in 2019-2021 expanded her contacts and exhibition opportunities into Europe. She participated in the Geuzenmaand 2021-2022 Exhibition through the 10dence gallery who represents her in Europe. The exhibition traveled to the Museum Vlaardingen, World Art Delft, Rotterdam Courthouse and Kunstwerkt Foundation Scheidam. She was awarded the Betsy Meyer Award in Philadelphia in 2021. She created outdoor and indoor large scale installations in and around Philadelphia as a member of InLiquid and CFEVA. Her residencies include: Saruya AIR, Japan/ Buffalo Creek Art Center, Nevada/ Chateau Campadieu, France/ Baum School of Art, PA.
Francis has utilized her degrees in Education, French and Architectural Interior Design to create a strong connection to the natural world while commenting on social, climate and political topics. Given the current social-political climate she believes it has become increasingly important to create work that bridges the gaps across different perspectives and facilitate relational dialogue.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Francis Beaty is an artist who works in a variety of media. Multilayered images arise in which the fragility and instability of our seemingly certain reality is questioned. By taking daily life as subject matter she comments on the everyday aesthetic. She tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way. She likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical and believes in the idea of function following form in a work. She creates work with a clarity of content and an uncompromising attitude towards conceptual and minimal art. Her works are characterized by the use of everyday objects in which recognition plays an important part. By emphasizing aesthetics, she wants to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation.
Her work does not reference recognizable form. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted. With a subtle minimalistic approach, she formalizes the coincidental and emphasizes the conscious process of composition that is behind the seemingly random work. The thought processes, which are supposedly private, highly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream worlds, frequently are revealed as assemblages.
Her works directly respond to the surrounding environment and use everyday experiences from herself as a starting point. Her works never show the complete structure. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language she tries to develop forms that do not follow logical criteria, but are based only on subjective associations and formal parallels, which incite the viewer to make new personal associations. Her works are often about contact with architecture and basic living elements. Energy, space and landscape are examined in less obvious ways and sometimes developed in absurd ways. Francis Beaty currently lives and works in Philadelphia.