Interview with Shingo Francis
By James Jack
SHINGO FRANCIS, Abyss (Violet), 2011, oil on canvas, 153 × 132 cm. Courtesy the artist and Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, Chiba.
On a cloudy April day, just as the first cherry blossoms were beginning to open, I met Shingo Francis at the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, in Japan, where his work featured in the exhibition “The Unseen Relationship: Form and Abstraction.” According to chief curator Takashi Suzuki the show’s premise was to “display historical paintings alongside younger artists’ work in the hope of finding new synchronicities between them.” In the first room for example, a painting by Shingo was displayed near one by his father, Sam Francis, suggesting a dialogue between the works, and the artists’ practices, spanning six decades.
