“Translating the world through my art feels powerful and magical to me”
–Fran Beallor
Artists Statement
In my work I embrace the challenge of recreating the world on canvas and paper. But “recreating” is only a beginning. I am often surprised by the stories that emerge and the resulting work is often more surreal and engaging than I anticipate. Portraits are rarely straightforward and still lifes are often “not so still” with objects falling, floating and flying. Fascinated by reflections which create worlds within worlds, I depict objects and rooms seen through the distortion of curved surfaces. The work invites you to enter into a world that is at once strange and familiar.
My ongoing drawing series, SELF, created over four decades , is a series of self-portraits that have become an unexpected lifetime journey. Using the vocabulary of my own forms and features, I bear witness to the changes of time, offering a broader experience of being human. Other drawing series – Portraits of Glaciers, Dead Horse Bay, and Ugly Fruit – address concern for our environment, stressed by the climate crisis.
When I create, I defy gravity. I question the nature of beauty. I seek to portray the character of a person or a glacier. Sometimes I think of myself as a writer who writes with graphite, pigment and oils. As I shed light on my subjects, they reflect my vision and reveal my stories.
“Look closely at the paintings of Fran Beallor ... you're likely to see more than meets the eye.”
–Barbara Gallo Farrell, Journalist/Editor Poughkeepsie Journal
Bio
Fran Beallor had a blast showing her 366 self portraits from 2020, and other examples of her ongoing series, SELF in a Solo Exhibition at El Barrio’s Artspace PS 109 in East Harlem, NYC in September 2022. Hung in 12 large month blocks, SELF 2020 was on view along with examples from the prior years' series and some of Beallor’s larger self-portrait paintings as well. In all over 550 drawings, paintings and prints were on display!
Beallor has been the subject of radio, in-print and online interviews, including one in Art Spiel in conjunction with her Solo Show. Feature articles and reviews have also appeared in the American Arts Quarterly, American Artist Magazine, and others. In 2020, she won the Morgan Library and Museum’s online Portrait contest with her painting, Circle Dance. She has also received a Greenshields Grant for Excellence in Realist Art.
Beallor has a long history of exhibiting her paintings, drawings and prints in NYC and beyond. Solo and group shows include the William Carlos Williams Center for the Arts, Denise Bibro Gallery, the Brattleboro Museum, the Butler Art Institute, and the Morris Museum. Corporate, public and private collections include the 9/11 Museum and the Copelouzos Museum in Athens, Greece. Beallor attended Antioch College, the Art Students League and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. She lives and works in Manhattan. Learn more about Beallor's work in a series of video interviews dailymotion.com/search/franbeallor
Leadership, Curating, Community Engagement and Teaching
Beallor is an artist, arts educator and independent curator. In 2019 as co-president of the New York Artists Circle (NYAC), a large downtown arts organization, she helped design their new website, nyartistscircle.com. And working with fellow board members, she helped create a digital gallery for online Curated Shows on the site. For Beallor, community and giving back are vital. Giving artists a voice through her curation is at the core of her practice. Concern for the environment is also key to her. Several bodies of her own work address Climate. In line with this concern, in 2020 Beallor curated Fragile Earth, one of the first online shows for the new NYAC site. In the summer of 2022, Beallor completed the NY Artists Equity Curatorial Residency led by curators, Hayley Ferber and Luciana Solano, culminating in a show co-curated by the residency participants. Shifting Balance was exhibited at Equity Gallery in the fall of 2022. Other curations include The SEED: the spark that sets an art life in motion, at Art at First Gallery, NYC and ref-u-gee, an online exhibition of Audrey Frank Anastasi’s forced migration series, both in 2023. A former Artists Talk on Art (ATOA) Board member, Beallor has curated panel talks for ATOA, including one in conjunction with her current curations for Hudson Guild. Two simultaneous exhibitions, Our Fragile Moment: Artists respond to the Climate Crisis at Hudson Guild Gallery at 441 W. 26th St and Water's Voice: Artists' Perspectives on the Dire State of Our Aquatic Ecosystems at Guild Gallery ll at 119 9th Ave are on view through Earth Day, April 22, 2025.
Beallor has run artist support groups, and has consulted with artists to help with writing and editing statements and proposals, digital portfolio preparation, website re-design and analysis, and other business skills necessary for an art practice. Beallor teaches art to all ages, specializing in portfolio development for high school and college. Former students attend top art programs including RISD, Parsons, SCAD, Carnegie Mellon, SAIC and Boston University, as well as LaGuardia, Frank Sinatra, A&D and other arts high schools in NYC.
studio@franbeallor.com