Will Francis and the Art of the Family
By Victor Carvellas
Grenada-born Will Francis is an artist whose bright colors,
abstracted figures, and playful, dynamic compositions both tell the stories of
his past and illuminate the joys of his present.
His beginnings were not promising. Though he confesses to
having “always been an artist,” it was a flash of inspiration in 1997 that
resulted in three paintings, back-to-back. “Then,” says Will, “I stopped for
the next 20 years.” He would have more living to do before his subjects would
appear.
In the meantime. Francis started both a family and a
transportation business. “We were doing really well,” he says, “we had clients
all over the Bay area.” When a New York account wanted him to expand to the
East Coast, he realized he was already spending more time away from his family
than he cared for. Then COVID struck, business evaporated, and he sold the
company. “My wife said, ‘now’s your opportunity; start your art business.’”
“Art is my career now, so it blends in with my regular
routine. I drop the kids off at school, go to the gym, then come back and paint
for a few hours until I pick them up.” Will is prodigiously productive. “The
creative process would come to a halt if I wasn’t painting every day. The ideas
just keep flowing, so I’m able to finish four or five paintings a week.”
The Paintings
For this article Will chose some recent works representative
of the subjects and themes that inspire him:
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Do I Love You
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Do I Love You: “I visited my mom some time ago
and I realized something I hadn’t known before—that she loves dogs. The person
holding the dog in her picture is her husband. He had a stroke and has been
unable to move for the last 10 years, so the dog, playfully frisking about,
compensates for the lost mobility and acts as an intermediary, a sort of vessel
that shares and embodies the love they have for each other.”
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| Chapters of Me |
Chapters of Me: “It’s about different phases
of my life. Different times. The grids there represent the buildings and
streets of New York, an important time in my life. That red represents how I
see the world today. So many disparities. The space Is so polarized with people
fighting for the wrong thing. The red is the blood; it’s the suffering of
people, especially in places like the Ukraine. The blood that is behind the
scenes is now up front and represents how front and center that suffering is to
me.”
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Family Time
|
Family Time: During the pandemic, we spent so
much time together. I was trying to be creative but also focus on the kids. I
was the primary caretaker since my wife was working. My business had to shut
down. I had to figure out homeschooling, then paint for 20 minutes. It was a
lot of time together, going to the park, taking walks. There’s a lot of colors
in there. You see, we had just bought the house and there was all this tall
grass and wildflowers in the back. They just ran around in it and had so much fun.
Those wildflowers are where all the colors came from. For me, the structure of
the piece suggests support and strength. The grids at angles suggest order amid
the spontaneity.”
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| Aunties |
Aunties: “I grew up in Grenada and across the
street from us was this big house. They were very affluent, while we were quite
poor. There was a lady there from Venezuela and she used to call me over and
give me food. She’d watch us play. The yellow and black line of the painting is
the street. Her husband watched us too. They never had kids, so I think
watching us meant something. As to the title, I could have used the apostrophe,
but the truth is there were two people there, so I dropped the apostrophe as a
kind of play on the words, to signify the pair of them.”
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Nothing Else Matters
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Nothing Else Matters: Is all about family,
about what you cherish most, what you think is most important. My first
business was as an owner of a car service business.
I spent a lot of time away from home, often
coming home just in time to put my daughter (we only had the one child) to bed.
Now what happened was that I could have been a subcontractor for this huge
company in New York with rights to the entire West Coast. It would have been
huge for the business, but I was all over the place at all times of the day and
night. My wife said to me, ‘your daughter is only a few months old. What are
you going to do?’ I realized how much I was missing, and I let the account go.
I didn’t want to miss that time in their young lives. It was just in time,
though, because Uber and Lyft came on the scene and that would have been my
competition.
Will Francis is hoping to have a new show opening in San
Jose very soon. You can find out more about him and see some of his work at
willfrancisart.com.
