Frances Wasn’t a Saint features a wide range of artworks including dynamic still images, multimedia sculptural installations, and a video work deriving from extensive isolated performances enacted by the artist. An ongoing inquiry into identity and the societal and power structures that we allow to shape it – Frances is real, although we cannot touch her. “I call her a ghost because she is not an invented persona, Frances references the real: an ambiguous female figure who lived, a grandmother I couldn’t really know, but who is talking to me and through me now,” states April Marten. “In conversation with this “ghost,” I allow her to take form in my body through performance. My performances extend from the referent while quoting from our culture’s hyperrealities including fairy-tales, grand narrative ideologies, biblical myths, social constructions, and manufactured desires.”
A live performance by the artist will take place on Saturday, September 7th at 2 pm, with a casual discussion to follow, moderated by curator Heather Zises, co-editor of the recent hard-cover Schiffer book, 50 Contemporary Women Artists.
