Working in different media, Rotterdam born artist Mandy Franca explores the continuous circulation of images, both online and offline, interconnectedness, and the desire to slow the experience of time - to better preserve important moments and places in memory. Mandy’s understanding of the world is formed by being brought up in Rotterdam, a multicultural environment when the personal computer was making its way into households. Growing up with people from different cultural backgrounds, and having a multinational identity from both the Netherlands and Curaçao, herself, have had a significant influence on her practice. She works around the notion of fluidity in the context of the sweeping rise of technology, travelling and migration. Identity and culture are all determined by one’s location and related objects, or artefacts, are a reflection of our time. ‘I’m interested in objects and the effect they have on us and say about our time. I see the word ‘object/ artefacts’ in the broadest sense of the word; images, memes, emojis, photographs, videos, audio etc. All these ‘things’ are of value to us personally and or socially and don't necessarily require the internet; for example the archive of images on your phone.’
Her work is an ongoing investigation into interpersonal relationships, drawing from life experiences and her personal archive. Mandy incorporates these subjects into works on paper, photography, drawing, collage, video, audio, print, sculpture and textile, creating a juxtaposition between surfaces and the image. Mandy’s commitment to the individual experience into a broader communal context can be understood within the concept of the everyday. Since the 1990s, the everyday has increasingly become a touchstone within contemporary art. This rise of capturing the things that comprise the common ground of daily life is usually understood in terms of a desire to bring these overlooked aspects of the lived experience into visibility.
Mandy is interested in this idea of the fluidity of digital materiality. This sense of elusiveness does not only happen because of the digitalisation of life, but also the contemporary practices of tourism, and migration. Everything seems to become increasingly fluid, even the disembodied online self. Mandy’s works are a reflection on how digital representations of objects, but at the same time things such as traditions and language are susceptible to fluidity. She defies it by trying to preserve the connection between communities through objects, experiences, place, and time. ‘I can be present in Amsterdam and Curaçao at the same time by video calling my father at 18:00 in Amsterdam,’ she explains, ‘while where he lives it’s 12:00 in the afternoon. I find comfort in connecting with family and seeing ‘my other home’ on a different continent. Sky, water, and trees present on different continents connecting us across the globe. The building blocks of life are viewable either through the help of the internet or out of my own window’.
SOLD
2020
Edition of three signed by the artist
22 x 29.9 cm
Pencil and wax pencil on giclée print
Made with the top-of-the-line fine art technique on the highest-grade Fine Art paper to ensure long-lasting quality.
Includes Certificate of Authenticity
A fleeting concept, there is a sense that the everyday, exists everywhere and nowhere, something that is and is not shared, at the same time. Everydayness is not a property or thing, but it inheres in the way they are part of manifold lived experiences. It is an elusive concept, but then again, trying to reconcile art and life is a tricky thing to do. Or is art simply the presentation of a slice of life? But Mandy’s practice goes beyond the universal message of life = art. She probes how technology makes it possible to be everywhere at the same time, but at the same time, you’re not. Trying to hold onto memories in a rapidly liquefying world.
UNAVAILABLE
2020
Edition of three signed by the artist
22 x 29.9 cm
Pencil and wax pencil on giclée print
Made with the top-of-the-line fine art technique on the highest-grade Fine Art paper to ensure long-lasting quality.
Includes Certificate of Authenticity
Mandy has studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and holds a Bachelor of Art from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. She has recently finished a Master of Fine Art at the Royal College of Art in London. Her work has recently been exhibited at Saatchi Gallery, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, Unit 1 Gallery Workshop, Southwark Park Galleries, and Soho Revue Gallery.
UNAVAILABLE
2020
Edition of three signed by the artist
22 x 29.9 cm
Pencil and wax pencil on giclée print
Made with the top-of-the-line fine art technique on the highest-grade Fine Art paper to ensure long-lasting quality.
Includes Certificate of Authenticity
Follow Mandy on her instagram and website.
Artwork photographs courtesy of the artist. Portraits courtesy of the artist.
where’s the frame? - ‘Lick the Future’ is a collection of London vanguards 2020 comprising of 6 artists that are currently making waves. The collection will be made available from December 2020 until the end of January 2021.
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