Frank Korb (b. 1972)
My art is personal and is layered with relationships. My use of abstraction contains design, balance, and movement that is inspired by what I see around me. I observe the formal elements of art in the world and incorporate those into my art. I explore relationships of color, space, and movement. I find inspiration in modern art while also being keenly aware of the contemporary world and art.
I develop a grid as my ground from books and periodicals that represent things that are important to me—the Bible for my faith, magazines on culture and wellness, and art history texts. From this grid, I build up layers of color and contrast, transparency and opaqueness, as well as positive and negative spaces. Through this building up, I develop relationships, a push/pull of space, color, and textures. Today, I find myself revisiting past works as I bring linear compositional movement into my work. Lines chase, in a fluid yet controlled fashion across, off, or sometimes fully contained within my picture plane. Each set of lines develops a particular intent as soon as the process begins. Transparency and layers are developed within the work so that the text or images from the grid below can, through close observation, be seen as another layer and meaning to the work. Personal ideas are what I begin each work with but the reaction the viewer has is also what I work toward.
In addition to abstractions, I create works that are representational. Plein air painting and portraiture are artistic veins that allow me to remain acquainted with my community as well as keeping up on my rendering skills. The skills that are required to make strong abstractions are, for me, grounded in the observation, interpretation, and rendering of a strong representational form.
I attended the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater earning his BFA degree in graphic design as well as art education (K – 12). I earned my MA in Visual Studies at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, WI.
If you have any questions regarding my artworks; purchasing, commissioning, of feedback, please e-mail at: fjkorb@gmail.com or by phone: (262) 492 – 9090. Please follow me on this site, Twitter: @fjkorb or Facebook at: www.facebook.com/fjkorb.
