Frances Trombly engineers practices with an established dialog of effeminateness, such as knitting and weaving, toward new scrutiny of contemporary art and life. Traditional craftsmanship combines with large-scale installation and environmental intervention to breathe new concepts into the backbone of materiality. Borrowing from polarizing arenas such as craft, art practices, labor and mass production, Trombly reinvents not only the raw materials of studio practice, but their sanctions in art history and authority in colloquial utilization.
The artist was born in Miami, Florida, where she lives and works. She received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and completed residencies at the Capri Palace in Anacapri, Italy in 2009 and the Vermont Studio Center in 2007. Trombly has exhibited throughout the US, as well as venues abroad, including an installation at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York and numerous group exhibitions.
Recent solo exhibitions of her work include: Not Paintings, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (2011); Everything and Nothing, Goldie Paley Gallery, Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia (2011); Paintings, Girls’ Club, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (2010); A Point From Which to Start, Galeria Casas Riegner, Bogotá, Colombia (2010); and Thinking of Things at David Castillo Gallery, Miami (2008).
Her work has been featured in various publications including Art + Auction, Art Papers, Sculpture Magazine, Surface Design Journal, and The Los Angeles Times and is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida, as well as in private collections throughout the United States.
In 2009, she received a South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual & Media Artists.