Not my own work 2001

In 1992, I decided to refuse the seemingly ubiquitous demand for an art practice to display consistency in some regard – via theme, medium or form, or more elusively, via 'style'.  But recognizing that a multifarious oeuvre might be seen to be a failure of consistency, I realised that I'd have to resort to stratagems. 

To start with, I used four pseudonyms to designate four different aspects of my practice.  Then there was the tactic of 'crossed wires', which realigned the sign of the individual artist with that of a collective: see the solo exhibition Mary Anne Francis: Group Show and The Faust Supplement.  Finally, in Unsorted, I emphasised the propositional status of the radically diverse artist as the exhibition was supposedly encountered in the middle of being installed.

At the turn of the millennium, the re-emerging interest in 'social art' encouraged my address to the inverse condition of 'the multifarious artist'. When before, I had sought to represent the variegated nature of the social world within an artist's practice, now I was concerned with that world as a medium.  So work here variously explores, for example, 'art and social function', and 'art as authorial collaboration and participation'.

First, Part Art engaged the interface of art and its 'others' e.g. floristry and furniture, with modular forms facilitating aesthetic and functional interactions. Part Art's Easycare flowers were then developed as an Open Source artwork - a piece that any one was free to copy, modify and re-distribute.  Most recently, I have been working collaboratively with the Critical Practice project Beyond The Free Market to challenge prevailing models of consumption and production, especially as these relate to food.

the multifarious in the artist:

pseudonyms
•Elisabeth Bodis
•Frances Francis
•Anna Hitchcock
•Sarah Scribner

switching the signs
•Mary Anne Francis: Group Show
•The Faust Supplement

the un-ready exhibition
•Unsorted

the artist in the multifarious:

other:

•the postcard archive of works
•list of exhibitions