Piece description from the artist
This series originates from a body of paintings destroyed in the 2014 five‑alarm fire that consumed Franck de las Mercedes’ home and studio. The space where these works were created and where the artist himself once stood, painted, experimented, and lived among them. Nothing was recovered. A decade later, Franck reopened his photographic archive and began the painstaking process of reviving each documented piece through careful upscaling, color correction, and digital reconstruction. What emerges is a collection that carries the physical and emotional imprint of that lost studio: concrete‑like textures, weathered chromatic surfaces, and gestural floral movements that feel both spontaneous and architectural. Saturated hues collide with raw, tactile passages, producing compositions charged with motion, memory, and the lingering presence of the artist in the space where they were first born. The series amplifies FdlM’s signature dynamism bursts of color, drips, angular strokes, and floral echoes rising like resilient blooms through urban grit. Each work becomes both a reconstruction and a commemoration: a tribute to the studio that burned, the paintings that vanished, and the creative force that persisted. Ideal for corporate, hospitality, and real‑estate environments, the collection offers visually electric, emotionally resonant works enriched by a narrative of loss, renewal, and artistic endurance.
Franck de las Mercedes is an internationally acclaimed contemporary artist from New York City, born in Masaya, Nicaragua. Known for a vivid fusion of abstract expressionism, neo‑expressionism, rock‑carving aesthetics, and Nicaraguan primitivism, FdlM creates emotionally charged compositions defined by bright color, jagged linework, and hieroglyph‑inspired text. His work explores childhood memory, family dynamics, current events, and sociopolitical themes with raw immediacy. In 2006, de las Mercedes gained international recognition for *The Priority Boxes a participatory art project promoting peace that earned him a joint legislative resolution from the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly. He has been named one of 15 Artists About to Dominate 2015 by Complex magazine and is the recipient of multiple awards recognizing his artistic and community impact. His painting "April Flowers" was selected by the Artists Unite/MTA Poster Project for display throughout the New York City Subway system.
FdlM’s work has appeared in major exhibitions including the Queens Museum, BronxArtSpace, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, BKLYN Designs, Naples Museum of Art, the 2019 Latin American Triennial of New York, and international institutions across Europe and Latin America. His paintings are held in public and private collections worldwide.
Prints of the artist’s pre‑2014 “lost works”paintings destroyed in the five‑alarm fire that consumed his home and studio are available exclusively through TurningArt. These restored archival pieces offer a rare window into an essential era of his practice.
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