SHINGO FRANCIS
Shingo Francis grew up in Los Angeles, immersed in the intense light and vast ocean vistas of life in southern California. Like many LA artists, Francis became fascinated with the ever-changing qualities of light and how it affected one’s perception and experience of the world. As the son of painter Sam Francis, Shingo also happened to grow up in the heart of LA’s nascent artworld, where artists such as Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Craig Kaufman and Peter Alexander were utilizing new materials to explore the phenomenology of how we perceive. These pursuits became loosely known as California’s Light and Space movement and for many of them, their artwork was as much a catalyst for exploring perception as it was an art object unto itself.
Francis has continued this pursuit with a series of gossamer-like paintings with colors that appear in constant flux, changing as one moves about them. Utilizing interference paints – a medium of crushed, titanium-coated mica that refracts light - the colors in these pieces shimmer and shift depending on the angle of the viewer and the reflection of light. Rectangular shapes conform to the shape of the canvas, creating a framework of change as viewers move. What one sees becomes inherently tied to their particular perspective and the character of the light at any given time.
The necessity of the viewer’s presence and engagement with the seeing and experiencing of the “work”, is a driving interest for Francis. He intends these paintings to counter the notion that the virtual reproductions of artwork on our phones, tablets and screens can replace, or even approximate, the actual physical and emotional experience of being “present” with a work of art.
Shingo Francis was born in Santa Monica, California in 1969. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pitzer College in Claremont, and a Master of Arts degree from ArtCenter College of Design, in Pasadena. Francis’ work has been exhibited in Japan, United States, Germany, South Korea, and Switzerland. He has a solo exhibition at the Chigasaki Museum of Art in 2024 and has been included in museum shows at the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Ichihara Lakeside Museum, the Martin Museum of Art, Hermes Art Foundation, and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation. He received the Fumio Nanjo Award in Tokyo. He currently divides his time between Los Angeles and the ancient coastal town of Kamakura, Japan.
EXHIBITIONS
LIMINAL PRESENCE
CROSS CURRENTS
LIGHT | SPACE
