Exhibition

Opening at the occasion of the 32. Seasonstart of the Frankfurter Galleries
04. September 2026, 18 - 21 h
05. and 06. September 2026, 11 - 18 h

With Chroma Bernhard Knaus Fine Art presents new works by Northern Irish painter Mark Francis (*1962), whose practice unfolds as a painterly exploration of sound, frequency and resonance. His works are dense perceptual fields, where seeing and hearing overlap, creating a synaesthetic experience. Situated between abstraction and visual memory, they resist fixed interpretation and instead address an immediate, sensory and emotional register.

In Francis’ work, colour functions as an acoustic phenomenon. Vibrating fields of colour, pulsating lines and rhythmically structured compositions generate a dynamic that recalls oscillation, echo and the layering of sound. The pictorial surface becomes a resonant field in which frequencies intensify, expand and intersect. Titles such as Sound Echo, Metronomic Sound or Veil point to these immaterial qualities and direct perception towards a mode of hearing within seeing. Francis gives form to sound through movement, intensity and rhythm.
The title Chroma evokes an all-encompassing acoustic field and refers to the full spectrum of sensory frequencies that shape our experience of the world. Sound defines environments and cultures; it forms a continuous flow through which we navigate and construct meaning. Francis transforms these often invisible and sometimes inaudible phenomena into a visual language that makes them perceptible. His works open a space in which perception unfolds as a fluid and evolving process.

The point of departure for his paintings frequently lies in structures reminiscent of scientific models: networks, crystalline formations or cellular systems. From an early stage, Francis combined an interest in mathematical and biological systems with artistic enquiry. Encounters with microscopic imagery revealed to him a hidden world governed by order and pattern. While such systems may be analysed and described scientifically, Francis isolates them from their context and renders their intrinsic aesthetic force visible. They do not function as motifs in a traditional sense but serve as catalysts for an open, process-driven act of painting.

Within this process, the initial structures gradually dissolve. What remains is an echo — a trace that persists without fixing itself into a recognisable form. Movement and vibration become immediately perceptible, yet never fully definable. It is precisely within this state of suspension that the works unfold their particular power: the viewer does not simply recognise, but senses and anticipates.

This tension between order and openness is also reflected in Francis’ working method. His compositions are carefully prepared, yet guided by a heightened sensitivity to the act of painting itself. Working often alla prima, the image develops directly on the canvas; surface, material and colour application interact dynamically. Planning and spontaneity, control and chance enter into a productive dialogue, lending the works their distinctive energy.

Francis’ painting is thus abstract in the truest sense of the term: a withdrawal from the representational, in which the echo of an originating idea nevertheless remains present. His works are not static compositions but experiential fields — constellations of colour, rhythm and resonance in which individual perception meets universal structures. They engage not only the eye but an inner sense of listening, opening a space in which the boundaries between the senses begin to dissolve.

In addition to the exhibition at Bernhard Knaus Fine Art, Francis's work is currently on view at this year's Venice Biennale until November. With the exhibition Sea of Sound, the artist represents the Republic of San Marino.