Sara Frantz

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Sara Frantz’ work is heavily influenced by travel, specifically the shift one sees along a route. Her work explores the similar themes of environment, consumption, space and forced decorative imitation of nature in a controlled revelation of landscape. Frantz fragments and re-configures the built environment through the prism of various styles and techniques. Flat color-field painting abuts dense, overtly physical marks and seamless gradients of graphite. The effect is one of near-collage, with the parsing of techniques held in tension with the unifying structure of landscape imagery: sky, horizon, and ground. In doing so, Frantz enters conversations about once-exalted Modernist pictorial styles, entangling them with local, familiar, and banal conditions. In effect, “high” art and “low” architecture co-mingle to form an inherently fractured, yet still-beautiful, image of both our contemporary environment and our means of picturing it. 

Frantz received her MFA in Painting from the University of Texas at Austin. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include David Shelton Gallery, Houston; Left Field Gallery, Los Osos, CA; Muriel Guepin Gallery, New York, NY; Sala Diaz, San Antonio, TX; and H.J. Miossi Art Gallery, San Lucas, CA. She was selected for the NES Artist Residency in Skagastrond, Iceland, in 2008. She is a Professor of Studio Art and Department Chair at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA.

Sara Frantz; Scene from the Library, 2015; graphite, gouache and pastel on paper; 40 x 26 in.
Sara Frantz; Cantilever 3, 2015; graphite and gouache on paper; 26 x 40 in.
Sara Frantz; Barber Shop, 2015; graphite, gouache on paper; 30 x 22.5 in.
Sara Frantz; Cantilever 2, 2015; graphite, gouache on paper; 26 x 40 in.
Sara Frantz; Modernist Pool, 2015; graphite, gouache and pastel on paper; 9 x 12,5 in.
Sara Frantz; Outside Milan, 2015; graphite, gouache and spray paint on paper; 30 x 26 in.
Sara Frantz; Burger Boy, 2014; graphite and gouache on paper; 40 x 26 in
Sara Frantz; Working Girl, 2013; graphite and gouache on paper; 32 x 24 in.