ARTIST STATEMENT

Being a junk bug larva, Frankmarlin enjoyed exploring their unfinished basement during childhood; the smell was distinct and memorable. Their mother described it as smelling like "guardado" or "saved." Within that space, containers and plastic zip-up bags that once held curtains housed their entire family history. They would sift through past bills, love letters, and childhood drawings, rediscovering things they knew existed but had set aside. The basement became a living crypt, a place where familial histories could be stored and resurrected, when necessary, a place for them to process complicated histories and commemorate the moments that matter most to them.

In their creative practice, Frankmarlin often revisits the basement, engaging with the present but “saved” (not forgotten) histories of the objects around them. The basement, to them, metaphorically is in the depths of one’s sentience, a self-accessed territory that everyone possesses to explore. Physically, the basement manifests into anything that one can use to store and protect the tangible/intangible things that matter most to them, like the lyrics of a song written on notebook paper. These all become sources of inspiration in their work, which they use to explore themes of human imbroglio, withdrawal, mourning, imperialism, and pleasure.

They believe that revisitation is a way to create meaning that is not dictated by others, a way to carefully put materials away in a safe place intended for others to find them when ready. They hold the belief that Black people need time to process, deciding for themselves when to retreat and when to sift through their own “basements.”