Franck de Las Mercedes

Franck de Las Mercedes, (b. 1972 in Masaya, Nicaragua) is a Nicaraguan American artist, based in New York. He was raised in a family of Nicaraguan folklore dancers, musicians and teachers, and spent his childhood immersed in the performing arts. In the mid-eighties, the Sandinista/Contra war forced Franck's family to immigrate to New York where Mercedes grew up and worked in music and theatre, studying under Gail Noppe-Brandon. In the late nineties he began working as an artist.

He has painted small empty boxes, a public art project called the "Priority Boxes", labelled with the words "PEACE", "JUSTICIA," "TRANQUILIDAD," and "LOVE," which he sends around the world for free. [ [http://abcnews.go.com/Exclusiva/story?id=3475011&page=1 "ABC News", August 16, 2007.] ] This mail art project started in 2006."The Priority Boxes" project is a public art series that seeks, to make people reconsider their ability to influence change, question the fragility and priority of entities like peace, and also to communicate, interact through art and make it accessible to people from all walks of life.

He is a subject of the film "An Abstract Way of Life", a documentary by Cara Weiner on abstract painters and "The Priority Boxes", a documentary by Dan Yadin. De Las Mercedes has been featured in national television and radio shows such as LatiNation, CNN en Español, Noticiero Telemundo and Aqui Y Ahora on Univision. He has also been featured in articles in several national and international publications like Nicaragua's "La Prensa," Art Business News,American Style magazine,Reader's Digest's Selecciones, Orion Magazine and The Artist's Magazine. In 2007 Mercedes was invited by The Betty K Studio in New York to take part in an International Art Workshop led by teaching artists Olivier di Pizio and Gonzalo Belmonte of the Ateliers des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.

He has been a resident of Weehawken, New Jersey. [Levine, Daniel Rome. [http://abcnews.go.com/Exclusiva/story?id=3475011&page=1 "Triunfador Franck de Las Mercedes"] , "ABC News", August 16, 2007. Accessed August 18, 2008. "Standing in the middle of his one-bedroom loft apartment in an industrial part of Weehawken, N.J., the 34-year-old abstract painter covers a small brown cardboard box in white acrylic paint and then carefully drips red and hot pink paint on it."]

References

Franck de Las Mercedes's website

External links

* [http://www.fdlmstudio.com] Franck de Las Mercedes's website
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4749734449169014301&hl=en] FdLM and The Priority Boxes - a documentary by Dan Yadin
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2hfHlpe0Ps] "An Abstract Way Of Life" An experimental documentary by Cara Weiner featuring four abstract artists exploring and exposing their creative expression. The Film features abstract artists Franck de Las Mercedes, Ted Minchin, Dianne Leon-Ferdico and Doris Weiner.