Francis Upritchard

About Francis Upritchard

Francis Upritchard’s early work confronted her post-colonial cultural heritage of New Zealand, drawing on a range of materials and ritual tradition from across history without adhering to accuracy or linearity. Ideas about evolution, belief, spirituality and mistranslation are all investigated with a combination of curiosity and irreverence.

Francis Upritchard’s early work confronted her post-colonial cultural heritage of New Zealand, drawing on a range of materials and ritual tradition from across history without adhering to accuracy or linearity. Ideas about evolution, belief, spirituality and mistranslation are all investigated with a combination of curiosity and irreverence. Her worlds are anti-imperial and non-hierarchial - without a dominant culture. For Upritchard the physical act of making is central to the conceptual development of her work, which combines furniture and found objects with hand made artifacts. Since 2007 Upritchard has been working on series of sculptures of the human figure - a merry band of anti-heroes, unassuming charmers, cads and holy fools populate fantasy landscapes. Many of Upritchard’s figures are distinctly medieval. She has cited the Dutch painters Hieronymous Bosch and Pieter Bruegel as influences, but there are other touchpapers that ignite the artist’s curiosity to work with figures. These include a group of wooden Morris dancing figures from c.1840 by German sculptor Erasmus Grasser. These small figures, once vibrantly polychromed, now faded, each have a title that denotes their role or classification, for example Prophet or Moor. These costumed figures are caught in lively positions, their faces lean from caricature towards the grotesque. Photographs of revelers from the 1971 Glastonbury music festival also inform these works.

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