Franchesca Flores is an interdisciplinary artist from San Jose, CA. She received her BA in design from UC Davis in 2019 and is currently studying at USC Roski School of Fine Arts for her MFA. Her work is influenced by street art and a demand for social change where she translates this through silkscreen posters. Primarily a printmaker, Franchesca is currently working with mycelium (fungi) as a means to transform traditional mediums into sustainable, biodegradable materials in consideration of the world around her.
Franchesca Flores
She’s Mad But She’s Magic, 2020
Rice, coffee grounds, Trolli gummy worms, Capri-Sun, sterilized straw, lion man
spawn, dowels
3.5 x 4.3 inches
Franchesca Flores
She’s Mad But She’s Magic, 2020
Rice, coffee grounds, Trolli gummy worms, Capri-Sun, sterilized straw, lion man
spawn, dowels
3.5 x 4.3 inches
Full Screen Image
Franchesca Flores’ She’s Mad But She’s Magic, provides viewers with a fantastical glimpse into the complex world of mycelium that typically goes unseen. The unseen plays a recurring role in Flores’ work as she was motivated to create this project after considering the impact artistic production has on our environment and climate change. Striving to create work that can be formed from common goods and detritus, Flores grew mycelium sculptures using food from her kitchen, which she then nurtured as they grew in the dark, protected by their containers from air particles and light that can harm them. In her photographs Flores makes visible the tiny structures of the mycelium — grown through prolonged isolation and the mixing of fungi spawn with common food — causing us to consider the ways we too could benefit from pausing and taking in our environment. – Emma Christ
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Emma Christ is an artist, art historian, and curator. She studied photography and written arts at Bard College for two years before transferring to Reed College, where she graduated with a B.A. in Art. Christ is currently an M.A candidate in the USC Roski Curatorial Practice and the Public Sphere Program. In her artistic and critical practice, Christ focuses on the uses and effects of the abject and the informed in contemporary art. She has worked with the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in Portland, OR, and the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, PA, as well as smaller galleries in New York and Oregon. In 2018, she was the recipient of the Undergraduate Research Initiative grant from Reed College. She recently co-curated an exhibition entitled Blue on Blue on Blue for Nationale Gallery in Portland, OR.