About Franceska
Photo taken by Anya Shilonos
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Franceska McCullough is a fine artist, writer, illustrator and educator based in Hertfordshire. Her practice spans painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture, rooted in traditional observational methods and a deep attention to the natural world. She works with eco-conscious materials where possible, both for her own wellbeing and out of a genuine care for the landscape she draws from.
She trained at the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri, completing a BFA in Painting and Printmaking with a focus in figurative oil painting. Much of her time there was spent drawing and painting from the life model in the Thomas Hart Benton studio. This training gave her a rigorous grounding in observational drawing, colour theory and art history that continues to underpin everything she makes and teaches. Among her most influential teachers there was the painter Michael Walling, whose approach to colour and art history left a lasting mark. She later studied and completed her first year of the MA in Art and Science at Central Saint Martins, UAL, and was awarded a Postgraduate Certificate, and went on for further study in model making and scenic painting at Pinewood Studios. As well as a City and Guilds Level 5 qualification in Transpersonal Arts for Health and Wellbeing from the Tobias School of Art and Therapy.
Her mother, Juliette McCullough, is an established British figurative painter who trained at the Royal Academy Schools, Camberwell and the Byam Shaw in London during the 1960s and 70s. Amongst her teachers was Maurice de Sausmarez, painter, writer and one of the most significant figures in twentieth century British art education, whose book “Basic Design: The Dynamics of Visual Form” remains in print today. His thinking about visual form and compositional structure came to Franceska through her mother's teaching, shaping how she learned to see colour and form, and how she eventually came to teach others herself.
Toothpick sculpture and memorial work
Alongside her painting and printmaking practice, Franceska is known for an earlier body of intricate toothpick sculptures inspired by sacred geometry, planetary movement, astrophysics and quantum physics. Working under the studio name Toothpickmoon, her sculptures were featured in Neatorama, The Coolist and numerous other publications, and she was included among a select group of international toothpick sculptors recognised for the conceptual and technical ambition of the work. Several of these sculptures remain in her possession; the larger pieces, some reaching four and five feet in length, are in private collections in various parts of the USA.
Two of her most significant works from this period were large-scale memorial pieces. “Six Million Pod” was a sculptural project in which every toothpick, the majority donated by people around the world, represented one Jewish life lost during the Holocaust. The sculpture, shaped around the Star of David and reinforced with bamboo, remains in a private collection in Dallas, Texas. Franceska’s “11 Million Hands project” invited people from across the world to submit photographs of their hands, each representing one of the eleven million lives lost in the Nazi concentration camps. The project attracted international press coverage, including interviews on BBC Radio 3, BBC News Online and EBS News South Korea in 2015.
Teaching & Writing
Franceska has taught privately for over 30 years, working with serious students across England, the USA and online, including in person at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where she uses the permanent collections as a live teaching resource.
Franceska also writes and illustrates fiction under a separate pen name.
Selected Exhibitions
2017 - Art and Science Group Exhibition, Imperial College London
2016 - Cryptic, The Crypt at St Pancras Church, London
2016 - Dirty Fingers Group Show, Dark Sugars, Brick Lane, London
2016 - Intersection, Made In Arts London
2015 - London Illustration Fair, Oxo Tower, South Bank, London
2014 - Epic Taco Show, Reactor Design Studio, Kansas City, MO, USA
2013 - Solo Drawing Exhibition, Suzana Gordon Design Studio, Dallas, TX, USA
2013 - Group Sculpture Exhibition, Blow Up Gallery, Dallas, TX, USA
2012 - Timeless Meditations, Tubac Centre for the Arts, AZ, USA
2012 - New Texas Talent, Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX, USA
2012 - Flags, UFOs and Bad Weather, LuminArte Fine Art Gallery, Dallas, TX, USA
2011 - Parallax Art Fair, Royal Opera Arcade, London
2011 - City Arts Festival, Dallas, TX, USA
2008 - West Edge Sculpture Exhibition and Seattle Art Museum Artist Panel, Seattle, WA, USA
2003 to 2007 - Private Annual Winter Exhibitions, Dallas, TX, USA
2002 - Roadkill, The Late Show Gallery, Kansas City, MO, USA
1999 - BFA Thesis Exhibition, Kansas City Art Institute, MO, USA
Selected Press and Publications
BBC Radio 3, BBC News Online and EBS News South Korea - interviewed for her “11 Million Hands” Peace Project, 2015
Aesthetica Art Magazine - paid advert 2011 and 2012
Modern Painters Magazine - paid advert 2012
The Coolist - featured among international toothpick sculptors, 2010
Neatorama - Astrophysical Toothpick Sculptures, 2010
Winner, Material Mashup - Studio 360, National Public Radio USA, 2011