gerlanda di Francia 

BEAST AND BEING

solo exhibition

July 11th - August 9th, 2026

Opening Reception: First Friday, August 7th, 2026

​​

Arch Enemy Arts presents BEAST AND BEING by Gerlanda di Francia. Eight new paintings in acrylic on masonite illustrate a surreal symbiosis between humans and the natural world. Rendered in Gerlanda’s signature acrylic crosshatching—her gentle, repetitive linework creating subtle variations of color carving out form—each piece depicts a different moment in which human identity and nature collide. Here, bodies become dwellings (“Bee Life” and “A Kind Kappa”), they are subsumed by primal urges (“Feline Kiss”), and transformed into entire ecosystems (“The Shape of Being”). These metamorphoses mean a certain ambiguity for Gerlanda’s humanoid creatures, adding another level of strangeness to her already phantasmagoric work. In this realm, faces dissolve as does the need for them when you become one with the natural world. 

 

“BEAST AND BEING stems from ideas and reflections that I have been setting aside for quite some time. These works feature characters in harmony with nature—hybrids of human and animal—who lack a defined identity but are shaped by the context in which they are depicted. These figures find themselves in a space of transformation, where the boundaries between the human body, creatures, and nature dissolve. The word ‘Beast’ evokes instinct—the ancestral, wild, and vulnerable part that belongs to every living thing. ‘Being,’ on the other hand, speaks to existence, identity, and consciousness. Together, these two words evoke a hybrid condition, a reflection on the fact that we are not entities separate from the natural world, but part of a single biological and emotional continuum.” - Gerlanda di Francia

 

Gerlanda di Francia (b. 1976)  studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and currently lives in a small town in southern Italy. She tells us she feels tremendously inspired by the nature that surrounds her, “the waters of the Mediterranean offer unparalleled sights. A place with ancient origins, it’s even said that some Greek gods once lived here.” Gerlanda began showing with Arch Enemy Arts in 2021 after submitting to our Spotlight Showcase, and BEAST AND BEING marks the artist’s fifth solo feature to date. 

​

BEAST AND BEING will be on view from July 11th - August 9th, 2026
Sold works will begin to ship the week starting August 16th, unless other rush shipping arrangements have been made. Items marked with a red dot have already been sold.

​