Lot #11: Krista Franklin

Krista Franklin

Butterflies, 2012

Archival inkjet print

Edition: 1

7 x 8 inches

Courtesy of the artist

Estimated value: $4,500

Starting bid: $2,750

Buy it now: $5,500

*Auction bidding: DARKROOM attendees are able to place bids in-person on paper ballots during the event on February 27, 2025.

*If you are not attending DARKROOM and would like to place a bid, please contact Jaclyn Silverman jsilverman@colum.edu and Patrick Thornton pthornton@colum.edu to add your bid to our ballot.

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Krista Franklin (American, b. 1970)

Writer and artist Krista Franklin is interested in juxtaposition and hybridity. She combines personal, cultural, and historical imagery to create Afrofuturist inspired mixed-media works and installations that explore themes of identity, intersectionality, and bodily autonomy. Taking its title from a poem by 19th century writer Paul Laurence Dunbar, her collage series We Wear the Mask (2012-2014) fuses female-identified bodies with parts of animals, plants, and other organic entities to investigate society’s perception of women. Butterflies (2012) is one of the first iterations in this project and represents her ongoing interest in Black photographic archives and vintage publications.

Krista Franklin received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts from Columbia College Chicago (2013). She has published many art and poetry books including Too Much Midnight (Haymarket Books) in 2020. Franklin’s visual work has been exhibited by Studio Museum in Harlem; Chicago Cultural Center; National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago; Poetry Foundation, Chicago; and many others. Her writing and art are in the permanent collections of DePaul Art Museum and Library of Congress Rare Boks and Special Collections. Franklin was the 2020 recipient of the Helen and Tim Mejer Foundation for the Arts Achievement Award and was a Cave Canem Fellow in 2001, 2002, and 2004.