Capucines Boulevard Features Artist Franco Muscarella

about the artist

Franco was born in Chicago, attending the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois. He is a participant in the Wilmette Art Guild, Around the Coyote, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Artist Coalition, Andersonville Chamber of Commerce, The Art Center of Highland Park, and the Wilmette Art Guild.

artists' statement

Most of my work doesn’t look like anything in the world outside my own head. Someone said it is “self-referential.” I sit alone and listen to music, usually “The Art of the Fugue” by Bach or the “Day of the Hunt” by Mozart. I make a mark on the paper….then another …and then another each one building on the next in little units. I never know where these units are going. I just let the building happen while the music plays. I know when it’s finished because as I look at it there aren’t any more marks to make. 

My art is the exact opposite of representational art. Mine is entirely my own…. personal. I don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. I want my drawings to take me into a new dimension, not the one most people live in…It’s sort of like atoms, building to molecules, building to larger units that we all can then recognize as something. I can look at something and draw it.. I can do that, but I don’t, because then my drawing won’t truly be my own. 

My drawings start with something that doesn’t exist before I mark it down. If I just copy something like a vase or a leaf for instance, that work will belong as much to the object as to me. I want to create something organically Franco. I work in sort of a feedback loop…I make a mark and that sends a signal for more marks. I really like when people say nice things about me and buy my work, but quite honestly, I do this because I have to…I don’t want to live another way.