Artist Statement – Sammy Frank

My artwork is a gentle mythology spun between painting and short story. These acrylic paintings, embellished with oil, gold leaf, and collage, weave the strong lines and brushstrokes of Impressionist painters with the scoffing of chance by Dadaist poets. Flash Fiction allows me to write as I paint, penning short individual pieces that drop a line into a larger narrative, mirroring the world-building of folk tales. Branching from the core relationship between a Zebra Spider and a Sinking Hand, my work explores empathy for the alien and the cumulative effect of searching for similarity. Having often wished to escape down a Rabbit Hole, my work lies within the British tradition of stepping through the ordinary into the other. Travelling to surreal parallels that softly probe human psychology and theology.