Frannie Kronenberg Art
Frannie Kronenberg is a contemporary abstract acrylic mixed media painter and practicing primary care physician who loves making art!
Message
Frannie Kronenberg is a contemporary abstract mixed media artist based in Somerville, Massachusetts, who embarked on this passion in mid-life. She has had a successful and gratifying career as a primary care physician and health care leader in Boston and New Orleans for over 30 years. She studied Art History at Brown University, which whet her appetite for art and for many years, she carried within her an affinity for color and abstract art.
During a break in her professional career, she began her exploration as an artist by studying color theory and abstract painting at the New Orleans Academy of Art. That experience inspired her to begin painting in earnest; she has been developing her skills by taking classes and workshops over the years both online and across the country ever since.
Kronenberg’s work is exhibited in New Orleans at Ariodante Contemporary Art and Craft Gallery and has been acquired by numerous collectors across the country.
Statement
I am a caregiver by nature, and a self-taught acrylic mixed media artist who started painting in midlife when I discovered that the creative process could be a relaxing yet energizing counterbalance to the cognitive demands of being a physician. I quickly learned that artmaking could renew me, activate my senses, enliven me, distract me, provide an escape. I also discovered that while I easily get lost within a canvas, my time painting is when I can subconsciously process emotions, thoughts, and concerns that come from caring for patients. When I paint, I strive to respond to each brushstroke, mark, or paint gesture by staying present with my work in the same way that I might instinctively sit and attend to a patient in the exam room. Both the canvas and the patient require nurturing, and my attentiveness; I do my best to respond to each with an intuitive sense of what to do next. Feeling and intuiting direct actions as I responds to each new mark or layer, as I engage in a dance with my canvas, excavating and revealing, exploring, and pushing beyond self-imposed restrictions. I escape my thinking brain and allow the inner joy I derive from colors, shapes, and lines, to drive my actions. With the move to large-scale formats in the past few years, big-sized canvases or swaths of un-stretched canvas unrolled and tacked upon a wall invite an even more liberating expanse of space for this dance! Experimentation with varied mediums, mixing paint colors, and incorporating collage elements all contribute to an exciting adventure of self-discovery! Most of my works are nonobjective, inspired by a written passage, a verbal exchange, a pattern or asymmetry in nature, feelings, thoughts, or the day’s events.