The Last Supper (unfinished sympathy)

The Last Supper (dealing with the Man)

7 Sins (Envy)

7_sins_(anger)

7_sins_(envy)

7_sins_(fraud)

7_sins_(greed)

7_sins_again_(greed)

abel+cain

“From the door”

confused_woman

heresy

img_3636

lust

orange_lady_(2)

orpheus_(back_from_hell)

plastic_doll

ronin

violence

“To challenge each brush stroke … think about every brush stroke … change the world in every brush stroke, a story with one image, a story that lives and changes as it is painted …” | Frank Schroeder

Frank Schroeder is a classically trained French artist, whose hip-hop inspired work though rooted in classicism is a continuing dialogue with neo-expressionist graffiti artists from the late 1970s and 80s.

Frank’s work is fast, responsive and instinctive, and is produced on canvas and cardboard. Given his ‘no time to lose’ mindset he favors acrylic because of its rapid drying time which is often overlaid with oil pastels and sometimes spray paint.

His pictures are rooted in conflict, in a colonial history that brought him from France to the Ivory Coast and a life of tumult and war. His escape lay in the paintings of the French masters, Géricault and Delacroix, and the poets and philosophers of 19th and 20th century. Into that potent mix came urban art, an immediate and expressive form that enabled him to tell his story, quickly, viscerally and in tune with the burgeoning hip hop scene.

 My work is focused on revisiting classical and philosophical themes that have built Western cultural and artistic Identity whatever origins or skin color, while developing a contemporary vision of these subjects.

I also work on a very personal and introspective reflection from my first part of life in Africa on themes such as  “silence”, “endless waiting” and  “loneliness”.

For my part, a painting should not be a simple illustration on canvas. Each painting must tell its viewer a story (spectacle), and must become similar to “Alice in Wonderland’s” mirror, so that each person has the desire to go through it and be a part of it. My paintings take the spectator back to his own nature, fear and reality.

I work with acrylic, sticks and collage paper on large canvases. I incorporate each painting’s strong elements in large (and often black) silhouette shapes of painted kraft paper glued on the support with paint for a superior visual dimension.

I believe that painting is only interesting if it stems from an intellectual and philosophical reflection that is necessary for all creative acts.

My painting is the result of a reflection that structures my thinking, my mind and my vision of the world.

My artistic cultural background was shaped by Picasso, Matisse and all the great 20th Century masters of modern painting, Art Brut,  street art and black urban art.

I work on a complex, emotional, modern and timeless painting.

Black Politics: Act I