Francine Hsu Davis was born and raised in Queens, NY. As a commuter most of her young adult life, she was intrigued by the captivating graffiti along the NYC subway line as well as the Greek/Roman wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Having attended programs at Cooper Union and F.I.T in high school, the continuous pull towards art led Francine to take elective studio art and art history courses while earning her undergraduate degree at Barnard College. In 2014, after over a decade-long career as an architect, she uprooted her family and moved to Taipei, Taiwan to learn about the culture of her familial roots. There she worked on her “100 Days of Taipei” project. Returning to the United States in the summer of 2016, she painted full-time in her studio in Oakland, CA. Now back in her hometown of NYC, she creates out of her studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Francine has exhibited in San Francisco and the East Bay. In 2019, she was a resident at the Vermont Studio Center.

Instagram: @francinehd

Statement:

Over the past few years, I have been documenting my Asian American experience using memories of the architectural landscapes and built environments of my relocation and travels through Asia but through the lens of my experience having grown up in NYC. As I move through the world, I sketch and photograph the details of the spaces that I explore, bringing those places back to my studio where I investigate the textures and colors of the city in rich layers of oil paint. I am interested in how our attachment to and nostalgia for a place can connect us.

The urbanism that took such a significant role in my upbringing is expressed in my work as I play with the scale of the city, sometimes filling my canvas with structures and architectural shapes, and other times depicting an eroded patch of wall with a few blooms of moss and marks of graffiti. As I paint, I play with my own memories and associations, along with my references and gathered materials, to create individual series of paintings. Through each series I create a cultural catalogue of specific experience and place, but as a whole my work carries a deep love of urban spaces, and a desire to explore and share the inherent memories and contradictions.

www.francinehd.com