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Frank
was born in Queens and raised on Long Island, but as a young adult
moved west—first to Montana and eventually to Santa Fe,
New Mexico. Frank’s work is clearly influenced both by the
man-made landscape of urban architecture and by the starker, more
abrupt western landscapes which stand as evidence of the forces
that shape our natural environment. |
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Frank’s
first artistic love was ceramics. As an undergraduate at Alfred
University (in upstate New York), Frank explored and pushed the
structural properties of ceramics. His first exploration in metal
came during a winter session in coal forging, where he glimpsed
that the structural properties of metals offered a whole new language.
Learning to work metal added volumes to Frank’s artistic
vocabulary; metal could be cast, cut, welded, and otherwise shaped
by a great many processes. With metal, the scale of Frank’s
work was able to grow. |
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After
receiving his BFA from Alfred, Frank spent 2 years working in
the building trades—thereby expanding his knowledge of construction
processes—before attending graduate school at the University
of Montana in Missoula. Some of the first works from Montana incorporated
concrete and wood as well as metal, but over time the pull of
working with metal became dominant in Frank’s creative process.
The power of the natural environment, so immediate in the Big
Sky State, also began to influence Frank during this time. His
relationship with landscape intensified as he observed the hydraulics
of western rivers cutting through rock, the freeze-thaw cycles
of snow pack eroding the great
Rocky Mountains. |
In
1984 Frank completed graduate school and moved to Santa Fe, New
Mexico, where he began working at Shidoni Art Foundry. His intimate
relationship with all aspects of metal working, including the
casting process, has enabled Frank to add an organic quality to
his work, forging a connection between his own sculptural aesthetic
and the forces at work in the natural environment. The influence
of these natural forces can be as subtle as the change in seasons
or as abrupt as a volcanic eruption; it is this dynamic that Frank
strives to convey in many of his sculptures. |
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Frank’s
continued observation of the stark
landscape and climate of the Southwest has also led him to incorporate
greater contrasts and textures in his work over the last twenty
years, further emphasizing the connection between Nature, Art
and Humankind in the natural enviornment.
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