Francis Schuck

Letter Before Sentence

I started making marks on subway cars and platforms, before I'd ever set foot in a gallery and before I knew what any of it meant. Queens, New York was my canvas. It's where I learned gesture and urgency.

Like a letter before it becomes a word, my spray can scrawls turned into paint, ink, thread, and scratched lines. Thirty years later, I'm still more interested in the letter than the sentence it's supposed to build toward.

My work seems to run in two directions that look opposed but come from the same instinct of being drawn to a surface or an image that already has something in it before I touch it.

Decorative: staining, scraping, stitching into reclaimed bed linen with inherent histories of dream scapes, restless nights, romantic tussles, longing, joy, death.

Figurative: pulled from forced consumerism, false ideals of beauty, sex and youth used as weapons, the male gaze turned back on itself, despite me being a man.

My work is built around the pleasure of making marks. It becomes a history surfaced anew and continued in the viewer's narrative. The work reflects decades of continued practice, carried forward with the same urgency that started on a subway platform in Queens.

I am currently showing in Seattle and Austin.

EDUCATION

SUNY Purchase College of Art, Purchase, NY, 1993

BFA, Painting; Mentored and Sponsored by Irving Sandler

University of Leeds, Leeds, England, 1989-1990

Painting and Art Restoration

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2026

Washington State Convention Center, Seattle, WA, Summer 2026

2025

Georgetown Steam Plant, Seattle, WA, "Shape of the Night," Summer 2025

Vermillion Gallery, Seattle, WA, Summer 2025

2024

Domicile Gallery, Seattle, WA, Bastille Day, 2024

2023-Present

Fogue Gallery, Seattle, WA, Core Member of the Artist Circle, 2023-present

Fogue Gallery, Seattle, WA, "Steal Like an Artist"

Fogue Gallery, Seattle, WA, "The Disposables"

1994

ABC No Rio, New York, NY, "Brown Paper Bag" 1994