The Sony Alpha Female+ Grant Team is excited to announce that the fourth of 12 grants for 2020/2021 has been awarded to Lisa Frank. Frank is a fine artist who uses nature photography as part of her complex artwork that involves layering and digital painting to create the final result. The Alpha Female+ Grant will support Frank for her project compositing photographs of zoo animals into photographs of the Thorne Miniature Rooms at the Chicago Art Institute.
Lisa Frank's fine artwork using layering of her nature photography and digital painting to create the final result.
“These intricate interior settings were created in the 1930s by skilled artisans at the minute scale of 1:12," explains Frank. "Each of the 68 Thorne rooms is a pint-sized portal to the past. Part doll-house, part stage set, these tableaux are tiny, obsessively detailed recreations of European, American, and Asian decorative styles from the 13th century to the 1940s. They each represent a fully fixed, lavishly furnished atmosphere of bygone days that await characters and a plot.”
The characters for her project will be the zoo animals, but as for the plot, that’s for the viewer to decide. Frank’s goal for the photographs is to address a number of questions the viewer might have in his or her imagination..."Are the animals interacting in distinctly human ways or in ways typical of their species? Have the humans fled? Have they disintegrated into apocalyptic dust? Have the zoo gates been blown wide open leaving the animals to repossess homes now standing empty?"
One of Lisa Frank's proof of concept images for her Alpha Female+ Grant-winning project that composites her zoo animal photography with photographs of the Thorne Miniature Rooms at the Chicago Art Institute. Frank has been planning out these images since before the COVID-chaos of 2020 and the grant will allow her to fully bring the concept to life.
“Successfully composited photographs could address all of these questions,” says Frank. “This potential for layered narrative excites me! It’s a different type of work than I normally create. It feels responsive to the current social, environmental, and political temperament of 2020 and beyond.”
See more of Frank’s work on her Alpha Universe profile and create your own public Creator Profile HERE. You can also contribute to the Alpha Female+ Community by joining the Alpha Female Facebook group, following @sonyalpha and @sonyalphafemale on Instagram and tagging your posts with #sonyalphafemale for a chance to have your work featured.
