Franco DeFrancesca

Born in 1967 in Toronto, and a graduate of OCAD and University of Guelph, multidisciplinary artist Franco DeFrancesca investigates the links between art and technology, using digital imaging to navigate between photography and painting. His vibrant-coloured minimalist work acknowledges the colour field and geometric work of the mid-to-late 20th century.

Franco DeFrancesca explores digital/mixed media as a mode of creating abstraction in the form of an art object. His artwork investigates the links between art, memory, history and technology, using digital imaging as a means to navigate the territory between photography and painting. As a result of mixing references to photography and painting, these multi-media artworks represent reflections on contemporary visual culture charmed by minimalism, modernism, technology and futurism.

DeFrancesca’s artwork highlights the visual, temporal, and spatial qualities combined with the physical and tactile. Applying a keen sense towards craft and a reverence towards materials and processes, the abstract image is integrated with an exposed support of layered plywood, then encapsulated beneath crystalline resin, creating an ‘object of desire’. With its physical depth and highly polished glean, these works reference minimalist industrial design and refer obliquely to the urbane.

DeFrancesca has exhibited in Canada and the United States and his work can be found in corporate and public collections world-wide, including Cenovus Energy Inc., Repsol, Ovintiv (formerly Encana), Enbridge Inc. (Calgary, AB), and Rodin Law Firm Litigation Counsel (Calgary, AB), amongst others.