Frank Webster is a painter who lives in Queens, NY. Webster received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. He also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Webster is the recipient of numerous awards including the NYFA Fellowship in Painting, the Pollock Krasner and the Golden Foundation Individual Artist Award. He has shown in solo and group exhibitions in New York at Blackston Gallery, Transmitter Gallery, Sara Meltzer Gallery and White Columns, among others. He has been awarded residencies at NES Artist Residency, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program, Painting Space 122, Virginia Commonwealth University, The Ucross Foundation, The Corporation of Yaddo, The Ragdale Foundation and The MacDowell Colony among others. Most recently Webster completed a mural project in the fishing village of Skagastrond, Northwest Iceland in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the NES Artist Residency.
Webster’s work—ranging from small, ethereal watercolors to 10-foot wide panoramic paintings—depicts both the nuanced allure of the natural world and humanity’s interdependent relationship to it. His formal exploration of this tenuous harmony in our ecosystem is apparent in all of his work. Grounded in reality, the paintings nonetheless abstract the ordinary: the everyday world is made transcendent and strange—and is imbued with an ethereal and melancholy beauty. The sharp juxtaposition of technology and romanticism are evocative of the moment—and environment—in which we find ourselves presently. His work contemplates the paradox of this co-existence.
A strong concern for contemporary environmental issues permeate his recent work on Iceland. After spending time at the NES Artist Residency, Webster commenced a series of large scale paintings depicting the ethereal landscape of Northwest Iceland. Although at first glance these paintings hark back to the tradition of the sublime and of grand tour travel paintings, on further examination they reveal a wistfulness for things passing, permeated with a sense of urgency that is emblematic of our current period of rapid climate change.
