Francis Upritchard (born 1976) is a New Zealand contemporary artist based in London. In 2009, she represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale.

Education

Upritchard graduated from the Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury, School of Fine Arts in 1997. She had initially thought to study painting, but became interested in sculpture during her first year.

Soon after graduating, Upritchard moved to London. Other works showed faux-antique delicate instruments in shabby velvet-lined boxes. Made of plaster and paper mache, the heads referenced mokomokai, tattooed shrunken heads made by New Zealand's indigenous Māori, but the features were those of Pākeha peoples. In a 2012 newspaper profile she said: 'I didn't think there was so much good figurative work in contemporary sculpture. [...] I went to Munich and saw [the 15th-century sculptor] Erasmus Grasser's Morris Dancers.' Writers about these works often reference counter-cultural movements, hippies, shamans and marionettes when describing them. Comparisons have been made to the earlier work of Bruce Conner and Paul Thek and Upritchard's closer contemporaries Ryan Trecartin, Lizzie Fitch and Saya Woolfalk. The Bart Wells Institute ran for about two years and exhibitions were curated by artists including Sam Basu, Brian Griffiths, David Thorpe and Harry Pye.

In 2003 Upritchard was shortlisted for the Beck's Futures prize for an installation titled Save Yourself, now in the Saatchi Gallery collection. The installation, featuring a small mummy figure, wrapped in rags lying on the floor vibrating and moaning, surrounded by canopic jars, was shown at the Bart Wells Institute. The previous year her work had been shown at City Gallery Wellington in the survey exhibition of recent New Zealand contemporary art Prospect: New New Zealand Art. In her citation Christov-Bakargiev wrote:

<blockquote>I had seen images of Upritchard's work, and of some of the other finalists' works, previous to experiencing this exhibition. But I had never seen the work in the flesh. The difference is astounding. Upritchard's work resists photography and reproduction, and this too, in the age of overwhelming communications and surveillance technology, gives me a good feeling, somewhat of an escape route.

Upritchard's work for the Biennale consisted of a number of sculptural installations displayed in the former private residence, the Fondazione Claudio Buziol. Titled Save Yourself, the works showed dreamy or dancing figures displayed on hand-made tables, mixed with ceramic lamps. It was the first time Upritchard mixed figures and furniture in such a way, an approach which has become a signature aspect of her current work. The figures, handbuilt from polymer clay, stand about 50 centimetres tall. Usually naked, or adorned with handmade and hand-dyed cloaks and textile wrappers, they are painted variously in solid block colours or patterns, including Harlequin blocks and grids. The artist said of these works:

<blockquote>I want to create a visionary landscape, which refers to the hallucinatory works of the medieval painters Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel, and simultaneously draws on the utopian rhetoric of post-sixties counterculture, high modernist futurism and the warped dreams of survivalists, millenarians, and social exiles.</blockquote>

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa acquired the work Dancers from the installation for its permanent collection. Two other works, Horse Man and Rainwob Tree, are in the collection of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.

Collaborative works

In recent years Upritchard has frequently collaborated with furniture designer Martino Gamper (also her husband) and jeweller Karl Fritsch. In their 2009 exhibition Feierabend at Kate Macgarry was an early outing of their collaborative works, mixing Gamper's furniture with Upricthard's sculpted figures and Fritsch's jewellery and objects.

For their 2011 installation Gesamtkunsthandwerk for the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery's international group exhibition Stealing the Senses, Upritchard, Fritsch and Gamper collaborated with other New Zealand artists, most from New Plymouth: weaver Lynne Mackay, potter Nicholas Brandon, bronze-caster Jonathan Campbell, felter Pam Robinson, glass blower Jochen Holz and woodturners Jan Komarkowski and Peter Wales. The exhibition was re-presented at Hamish McKay Gallery in Wellington. The title is a German word meaning 'a total artwork that involves all the parts of the arts and in particular the work of the handmade'.

Public art

thumb|Loafers (2012) located on the [[Symonds Street overpass in Auckland, New Zealand]]

thumb|Here Comes Everybody (2022) at the [[Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia]]

Upritchard's first piece of public art is installed in inner-city Auckland on Symonds Street.</blockquote>

In 2022, Upritchard's Here Comes Everybody was unveiled for the Sydney Modern Project of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Survey exhibition: Jealous Saboteurs

In February 2016 a survey show of the first 20 years' of Upritchard's work, Francis Upritchard: Jealous Saboteurs, opened at MUMA (the Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne). The exhibition was co-curated by MUMA director Charlotte Day and City Gallery Wellington chief curator Robert Leonard. The exhibition opened at City Gallery Wellington in May 2016.

Publications on Upritchard's work include:

  • Heads of Yesteryear, London: Kate Macgarry, 2005
  • Doomed, Doomed, All Doomed, Auckland: Artspace, 2005.
  • Human Problems, London and Rotterdam: Kate Macgarry and Veenman, 2006.
  • Every colour by itself, London: Dent-de-Leone, 2009.
  • Save Yourself, New Plymouth: Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 2009.
  • In die Hole, London: Dent-de-Leone, 2010.
  • A hand of cards, Nottingham: Nottingham Contemporary, 2012.
  • Francis Upritchard: Mandrake, Dublin: The Douglas Hyde Gallery, 2013.
  • Francis Upritchard: Potato poem, Kyoto: Foiru, 2013.
  • Francis Upritchard's Moneksy and Sloth, London: Whitechapel Gallery and Garden Press, 2014.
  • 2016 Francis Upritchard: Jealous Saboteurs, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne and City Gallery Wellington; Dark Resters, Ilam Campus Gallery, University of Canterbury and Ivan Anthony Gallery Auckland
  • 2014 Hammer Projects: Francis Upritchard, Hammer Museum Los Angeles; Whitechapel Gallery Children's Art Commission, Whitechapel Gallery
  • 2013 Potato Poem, Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (MIMOCA), Kargawa, Japan
  • 2012 Francis Upritchard: A Long Wait, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; A Hand of Cards, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham
  • 2011 Echo, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoor, the Netherlands; Gesamtkunsthandwerk with Martino Gamper and Karl Fritsch
  • 2010 IN DIE HÖHLE, Wiener Secession, Vienna
  • 2010 Save Yourself, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
  • 2009 Save Yourself, New Zealand representation at the 53rd Venice Biennale,
  • 2008 Rainwob I, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery; Rainwob II, Artspace, Auckland and Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne
  • 2006 The Walters Prize, Auckland Art Gallery
  • 2005 Doomed, Doomed, All Doomed, Artspace, Auckland
  • 2004 Artist in Residence, Camden Arts Centre
  • 2003 Boxing Arms, Dunedin Public Art Gallery

References