Francis Marshall

FRANCIS MARSHALL

In collaboration with Museum Dr. Guislain Ghent

Prints from old medical books, pieces of wood, rags, old nylon stockings, discarded bicycles and radios, found portraits: these fragments form the foundation of Francis Marshall’s sculptures or bourrages (“stuffings”). Using these “fragments of the world”, he creates an unexpected universe of his own. Francis was discovered by Alain Bourbonnais, a collector of Art Brut and friend of the painter Jean Dubuffet.

In his paintings, Francis Marshall recycles existing imagery, such as the recurring figure of a schoolgirl leaning on her right arm (an image he found at the bottom of a dustbin), or the neatly dressed man with perfectly combed hair. Marshall paints landscapes on location, then adds the figures later in his studio. On the wooden frame, he inscribes poetic titles and verses. His work exudes an eerie, often unsettling atmosphere–elusive yet always tinged with a quiet sense of guilt.

the young girl and the mysterious man