Jason Franz | Life Drawings
May 8 - June 13, 2026
Artist Statement
Most of my life drawings were made in 90 minutes in one sitting with a live model. (A small number were made in just over 260 minutes.) From a distance, they may appear dim and difficult to see, but upon close inspection, one can see a frenetic energy of note-taking, analyzing, measuring, defining, and refining. The process of searching for and noting geometric proportions, reference angles, mass conceptions, and internal anatomical structure—as well as the vibrancy of living energy in the human body—is captured and conveyed through the many different layers and modes of working visible in each drawing.
Much like miniatures, these drawings are best experienced when examined closely. It is important for it to be understood that they are made in a given amount of time. As such, like human life, they end flawed, incomplete, and marked by the time they took to exist. Therefore, one can see fully defined areas transitioning into brief gestural notations, glimpses of the undeveloped but evident form that is still part of the whole.
The drawings are titled by a number representing the year_month_day they were made. Each drawing is a roughly 90-minute slice of its particular day in time. As such, they are intended to be as much literal descriptions of what is seen as they are seismographic records of energy spent by the human hand making marks for a limited time with a given intent.
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I've made it my practice to draw from the live model once a week, nearly every week, for the past 28 years. The drawings embody my teaching and seeing philosophy, including exploring the merger of design drawing, traditional figurative fine art, and conceptual observational practice. They are about looking, seeing, understanding, and being in the world. They offer a two-fold experience: one of insight into my unselfconscious and unabashedly human hand-eye efforts at drawing from life and of a body of work that serves as a tangible testament to time shared and spent between two living beings—the artist and the model. Each work, as well as the collective whole, is a measure of time spent in contemplation of the physical manifestation of time—life itself.
Ink has emerged as a favorite medium because the idea of using a substance that one could find on nearly any office desk, whether in the form of a ball point pen or fluid ink in a bottle, to make a drawing that evokes the energy of both a living subject and the living artist is important to me. For this reason my practice has become like Zen ensō painting which "evidences the character of its creator and the context of its creation in a brief, contiguous period of time."
Jason Franz
Cincinnati, Ohio, 2026
May 8 - June 13, 2026
Artist Statement
Most of my life drawings were made in 90 minutes in one sitting with a live model. (A small number were made in just over 260 minutes.) From a distance, they may appear dim and difficult to see, but upon close inspection, one can see a frenetic energy of note-taking, analyzing, measuring, defining, and refining. The process of searching for and noting geometric proportions, reference angles, mass conceptions, and internal anatomical structure—as well as the vibrancy of living energy in the human body—is captured and conveyed through the many different layers and modes of working visible in each drawing.
Much like miniatures, these drawings are best experienced when examined closely. It is important for it to be understood that they are made in a given amount of time. As such, like human life, they end flawed, incomplete, and marked by the time they took to exist. Therefore, one can see fully defined areas transitioning into brief gestural notations, glimpses of the undeveloped but evident form that is still part of the whole.
The drawings are titled by a number representing the year_month_day they were made. Each drawing is a roughly 90-minute slice of its particular day in time. As such, they are intended to be as much literal descriptions of what is seen as they are seismographic records of energy spent by the human hand making marks for a limited time with a given intent.
________
I've made it my practice to draw from the live model once a week, nearly every week, for the past 28 years. The drawings embody my teaching and seeing philosophy, including exploring the merger of design drawing, traditional figurative fine art, and conceptual observational practice. They are about looking, seeing, understanding, and being in the world. They offer a two-fold experience: one of insight into my unselfconscious and unabashedly human hand-eye efforts at drawing from life and of a body of work that serves as a tangible testament to time shared and spent between two living beings—the artist and the model. Each work, as well as the collective whole, is a measure of time spent in contemplation of the physical manifestation of time—life itself.
Ink has emerged as a favorite medium because the idea of using a substance that one could find on nearly any office desk, whether in the form of a ball point pen or fluid ink in a bottle, to make a drawing that evokes the energy of both a living subject and the living artist is important to me. For this reason my practice has become like Zen ensō painting which "evidences the character of its creator and the context of its creation in a brief, contiguous period of time."
Jason Franz
Cincinnati, Ohio, 2026
Artist Bio
Jason Franz is a Cincinnati-based artist, educator, and curator. He attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati when it was still a museum-school, earning his BFA in 1988, and later received his MFA from the University of Cincinnati in 1998. He spent a decade working in exhibitions at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
From 1997 through 2012, Franz developed and taught courses in fine art and design at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati, and Xavier University, where he was appointed to lead the painting and drawing programs. During this time he laid the philosophical groundwork for Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, a nonprofit visual arts organization he co-founded in 2004.
Franz is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including an Ohio Arts Council Fellowship, a Xavier University Faculty Development Grant, two Darwin T. Turner Teaching Awards from the University of Cincinnati, and four Summerfair Individual Artist Grants. In 2009 he received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and he is a seven-time Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) recipient for his work on Manifest Press publications.
His writing on drawing, painting, and photography has appeared in Drawing Magazine, Artists Magazine, and others. His work was featured in New American Paintings Midwest Volume #23. Franz continues to exhibit his drawings nationally, with recent solo exhibitions at Western Illinois University, Bellarmine University, and New Mexico Highlands University.
He lives with his wife, artist-designer Brigid O'Kane, their daughter, and two cats in Cincinnati.
www.jasonfranz.com
instagram: @jasonfranz
Jason Franz is a Cincinnati-based artist, educator, and curator. He attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati when it was still a museum-school, earning his BFA in 1988, and later received his MFA from the University of Cincinnati in 1998. He spent a decade working in exhibitions at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
From 1997 through 2012, Franz developed and taught courses in fine art and design at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati, and Xavier University, where he was appointed to lead the painting and drawing programs. During this time he laid the philosophical groundwork for Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, a nonprofit visual arts organization he co-founded in 2004.
Franz is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including an Ohio Arts Council Fellowship, a Xavier University Faculty Development Grant, two Darwin T. Turner Teaching Awards from the University of Cincinnati, and four Summerfair Individual Artist Grants. In 2009 he received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and he is a seven-time Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) recipient for his work on Manifest Press publications.
His writing on drawing, painting, and photography has appeared in Drawing Magazine, Artists Magazine, and others. His work was featured in New American Paintings Midwest Volume #23. Franz continues to exhibit his drawings nationally, with recent solo exhibitions at Western Illinois University, Bellarmine University, and New Mexico Highlands University.
He lives with his wife, artist-designer Brigid O'Kane, their daughter, and two cats in Cincinnati.
www.jasonfranz.com
instagram: @jasonfranz
Inventory
- 2025_1_19 (Resolution Thirty-Eight), India ink on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,600
- 2025_4_22 (Resolution Forty-Eight), India ink, walnut ink, and gouache on watercolor paper, 12x9”, NFS
- 2018_6_5, ball point pen on Bristol paper, 14x11”, $1,100
- 2024_11_6 (Resolution Twenty-Six), India ink and ball point pen on watercolor paper, , 12x9”, $1,100
- 2025_4_6 (Resolution Forty-Five), India ink, walnut ink, and gouache on watercolor paper, 12x9”, NFS
- 2021_5_26, ball point pen on Bristol paper, 14x11”, $1,100
- 2012_4_10, black and white charcoal on paper, 20x16”, $2,000
- 2012_5_1, black and white charcoal on paper, 20x16”, $2,000
- 2021_5_12, ball point pen on Bristol paper, 14x11”, $1,100
- 2025_7_13 (Resolution Fifty-Eight), India ink, walnut ink, and gouache on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,600
- 2024_1_10 (Resolution One), India ink and white calligraphic ink on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,100
- 2025_1_5 (Resolution Thirty-Six), India ink on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,600
- 2025_4_20 (Resolution Forty-Seven), India ink, walnut ink, and gouache on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,600
- 2023_11_1, ball point pen on Bristol paper, 11x14”, NFS
- 2011_1_25 (way), graphite on paper, 11x14”, $1,800
- 2024_4_24 (Resolution Six), India ink on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,100
- 2024_5_29 (Resolution Nine), India ink on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,100
- 2025_3_2 (Resolution Forty-Two), India ink, walnut ink, and gouache on watercolor paper, 12x9”, NFS
- 2024_11_27 (Resolution Twenty-Nine), India ink on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,600
- 2024_3_20 (Resolution Four), India ink on watercolor paper, 9x12”, $1,100
- 2024_5_8 (Resolution Seven), India ink on watercolor paper, 9x12”, $1,100
- 2025_11_25 (Resolution Sixty-Eight), India ink, walnut ink, and gouache on watercolor paper, 9x12”, NFS
- 2024_7_14 (Resolution Fourteen), India ink on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,100
- 2025_5_4 (Resolution Fifty), India ink, walnut ink, and gouache on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,600
- 2024_5_22 (Resolution Twenty-Nine), India ink on watercolor paper, 12x9”, $1,100
- 2023_3_28, ball point pen on Bristol paper, 14x11”, $1,100
- 2012_4_17, black and white charcoal on paper, 20x16”, $2,000
- 2012_5_29, black and white charcoal on paper, 20x16”, $2,000
- 2021_6_9, ball point pen on Bristol paper, 14x11”, $1,100
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Buckham Gallery is funded by the following organizations:
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Generous support is provided by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Community Foundation of Greater Flint.
This program is sponsored by the Greater Flint Arts Council Share Art Genesee Grant Program made possible by the Genesee County Arts Education and Cultural Millage funds. Your tax dollars are at work!
This program is sponsored by the Greater Flint Arts Council Share Art Genesee Grant Program made possible by the Genesee County Arts Education and Cultural Millage funds. Your tax dollars are at work!
