Eliza Frensley

Eliza Frensley was born and raised in middle Tennessee. She received her BFA in Printmaking with Entrepreneurial Studies from Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia. A main emphasis in Frensley’s practice is participating in community engagement. Post graduation, she became a member of Philadelphia's Second State Press, a community print studio, and worked with Temple University's Disability Resources and Services Department as a studio helper. After returning to Tennessee she continued her community outreach. She volunteered to bring printmaking to Nashville School of the Arts and worked as a substitute teacher for Metro Nashville Public Schools. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) where she is the vice president of the print club.

Frensley has exhibited work throughout Tennessee and has shown in juried exhibitions, including the Full Court Press Juried Print Exhibition of the Americas at the Art Center of Corpus Christi, TX; the Delta National Small Prints Exhibition at the Bradbury Art Museum, AR; the 2024 Printmaking Juried Exhibition at Five Points Arts Center in Torrington, CT; imPressed: Don’t Look Up at the Art Gym Gallery in Denver, CO; and in the 11th Annual International Juried Print Exhibition: With precision at the Remarque Print Workshop and Gallery in Albuquerque, NM.

As a printmaker and storyteller, I use printed material to reference the historical and contemporary qualities of communication, documentation, and the archive. In my practice, printmaking and time-based art processes affirm the verity of the multiple by allowing me to travel through time and cut across episodes of overlapping information within a single composition. Inspiration emerges from my inability to distinguish between the truth of my family's heritage and the tendency to romanticize, idealize, and abstract my family's history. My work goes beyond the questions of what is true or not true and reframes reality using existing evidence, such as photographs, newspaper clippings, and storytelling, collaged with visually disruptive textures and anecdotal metaphors. In response to this evidence or lack thereof, I am creating a collection of visual images that present stories and perspectives that delineate the prescriptive roles of the feminine, navigating real and imagined space. I explore the significance of origin, its intersection with standards of the traditional roles of women, and how perceptions and expectations are disseminated within families through the created narrative.

I was raised to follow the expectations and traditions of two socioeconomically divergent families, different in class and outward presentation but similar in the nuance of their internal affairs, pursuits, exploits, and etiquette. Traditions of domesticated behavior were imbued in every aspect of our lives and continue to inform my perception of the world and the contradicting feelings of familiarity and discomfort with these expectations. Often, I found my relationship with the concepts of a "happy family" and a "happy life" to be informed by pictures of my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother as subjects in front of the camera while my great-grandfather was behind it. I experienced envy of the extravagant parties, social events, desirable possessions, and prestige of their upper-middle-class society. However, this embellished and flawless public facade masked the secrets, lies, addictions, and dependencies that saturated every generation. 

My work deviates from existing and traditional narratives, delving into a space that challenges the pliability of association, time, human experience, and communication. I do not seek to distinguish between real and constructed familial history, as much of the past is shrouded in exaggeration and prevarication. Instead, I employ these reproduced documents as translations of evidentiary language that establishes my understanding of the woman's role in my family, navigating a complex and confusing family system.