DVAA Member since 2023

Hallel Shapiro-Franklin

About:

Hallel Shapiro-Franklin is an interdisciplinary artist based in Philadelphia. Through the visual principles of repetition and sequence, Shapiro-Franklin unifies the ideas of consciousness, light, breath, and an understanding of identity. Her works emote a sense of devotion to time to inform the making and viewing experience. Shapiro-Franklin explores the intersections of these ideas through glass, printmaking, and paper cuts. She received a BFA in Printmaking with Entrepreneurial Studies from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

Artist Statement:

We are deeply interconnected. Our stories bind us to who we think we are and give us a place to start. We are one in our joy, in our despair, in the mundane, and the otherworldly. We share the same roots and we are connected in our deepest experiences to our simplest ones. I think these collective moments are where God slips through the cracks. My practice is a tool to adjust our eyes to see those intertwined threads. Little by little, I am pulling at the fibers of the paper and transforming them into something new. I am compelled to understand the intricate needs of the material by working in glass, sculpture, cut paper, and printmaking. It is a practice of patience. The paper begins in blankness. Motion of my hand initiates the order of a grid. The repetition of the pattern is created through the act of removal. In each incision, I am deciding how to create the bridges that will connect what remains. There are two parts: the negative space that is left and the positive space that is created. It is all a balancing act. There are places where a fingerprint appears, moments where the paper tears and folds, mistakes that tell you that my hand took part in this process. The design is fabricated through every decision. Repetition extends throughout the medium. Divinity is in the details