“My work is mostly narrative in intent. I wouldn’t say that I tell stories with my visual art. When I want to tell a story, I use words and write a story. The initial impulse that drives me to start an image is a narrative impulse. Once the work is under way, the artwork has a life of its own: the words drip away and from that point on the creation of the work is based on purely visual response."
Francis’ work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States in such venues as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), Mississippi Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Southern Art (LA), National Building Museum (DC), National Museum of American Crafts (NY) and the Montgomery Museum of Art (AL). His work is included in the collections of the J.P.Getty Museum and Libraries (CA), Boston Museum of Fine Art (MA), Library of Congress (DC), High Museum (GA) and the Birmingham Museum of Art (AL). Ke currently works from his studio in Florida.
“My work is mostly narrative in intent. I wouldn’t say that I tell stories with my visual art. When I want to tell a story, I use words and write a story. The initial impulse that drives me to start an image is a narrative impulse. Once the work is under way, the artwork has a life of its own: the words drip away and from that point on the creation of the work is based on purely visual response. Most of the work assumes its own identity, finds its own way to completion. I do what the work tells me to do. When a work is successful, it is because I’ve managed to get out of the way. This way of working makes bragging such a hollow experience; not the ego-building, uplifting thing bragging was designed to be.”
