Cross-dressing for the Battlefield, a two gallery exhibition at Salon 94 and Lyles & King, NY, 2021 explores female resistance, transgression and desire through the lens of feminist portraiture. Drawing inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party and Joan of Arc, the artist plays with concepts of premonition congregation, performance and fantasy.

At Salon 94 Freemans, eight colorful paper pulp paintings take center stage surrounded by a chorus of elaborately underpainted and glazed ceramic sculptures displayed on pedestals and walls. Abandoning her usual sequential, narrative-based practice in favor of an incongruous gathering of female archetypes, Frank creates a theatre-in-the-round, a stage from which her multiple narratives unfold. Brides, singers,saints and sinners co-mingle, each depicted in the act of transformation or becoming. Brightly adorned with blooming flora, they converse with their animal counterparts who act as talisman, spirit guide, or alterego. Composed of layered pigmented paper pulp or twisted, painted clay, Frank’s sitters are embodiments of baroque embellishment, with each lavish attribute pointing to the construction of feminine identity and the disruption of conventional gender norms.

The exhibition continues at Lyles & King, where Frank’s paper pulp heroines take their seat at the table. Frank’s cast of women, led by the cross-dressing warrior Joan of Arc, expand beyond their respective frames into tableaux. Two wall vinyls made from Frank’s drawings span the entire length of the gallery, surrounding seven-foot tall seated female figures whose portraits are composed of paper pulp.