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FRANCINE FUNKE Artist

My Story

I was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent my childhood in a “rough around the edges” neighborhood. City lots were strewn with “found objects”, and backyards were covered with sand, not green grass. One of my earliest creative memories was making elaborate multi-layered pies of mud and Plaster of Paris, a bag of which just happened to be in the yard. My mother, who could tackle any project, and my playmates in Brooklyn, who were a wildly creative bunch, stoked my artistic flame at an early age.

I have always been an artist. I cannot remember ever being anything but.

After getting my Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Cornell University, I attended Hunter College Graduate School in New York City, where I received a Master of Fine Arts Degree. I spent many months/years “pounding the pavement” in Soho and Chelsea, the Arts districts in New York City, and managed to land solo shows in galleries there. I usually work in series, and it was my sculptural “Chair Series” that was chosen by Tiffany and Company to be displayed in their five windows on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Next came my “Fire Works” Series of acrylic and paper on canvas works. A career highlight, and an experience I will never forget, came when Senator Joseph Lieberman sponsored my installation,”Plumes” to be exhibited in the Russell Senate Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. That installation travelled to the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and then to the Stamford Center for the Arts in Stamford, Connecticut.

Although my early art education focused on traditional media, such as painting and drawing, I have always experimented with new media and techniques. My recent “Mechanical Botanical” Series and "Altered Elements" Series combine digital manipulation with more traditional hand applied painting and drawing .

A large site-specific exterior window installation entitled, “Through the Grass Darkly”, was shown at the Mixed Greens Gallery in Chelsea, New York City. And recently, I completed a 20 foot installation for Christus Health outside of Dallas, Texas.

In addition, Zaha Hadid Architects purchased two of my large-scale pieces for their fabulous One Thousand Museum residential tower in Miami, Florida. My artwork is in the collections of MD Anderson in Houston, Christus Health Irving, Texas, the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, The Aldrich Museum, in Connecticut, Sacred Heart University, General Electric Corporation, Phoenix Insurance Company, Virtrue Corporation, Prudential Insurance Company and others.

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