Frorup, Kendra

A Bahamian artist that lives and works between Tampa, Florida and Nassau, The Bahamas, Kendra Frorup (born Nassau, The Bahamas 1965) works primarily in sculpture and print-making. She is inspired by her sensory memories of home, The Bahamas, and refers to these familiar sounds, tastes and smells within her works. Tamarind fruit cast in bronze, resin sugar-apples and ceramic coconuts are layered on top of screen-prints and mono-prints of roosters, chickens, straw-baskets and local architecture. Each work can be compared to the experience of walking down a busy side-street in Nassau or an out-island; the artwork is an assemblage of this sensory experience into a physical object.

Frorup says of her practice, "As an artist and educator who grew up in the Bahamas, I have always been interested in the influences of culture on expression. I feel that culture creates the field from which we draw formal and intuitive responses"

One of the defining features of Frorup's practice is her prolific and playful use of a variety of everyday material, often organic and tied to the landscape she grew up in. Her practice includes caste metals, drawing, found objects, frames, and prints among other things. The result is her work often appears like a sculptural assemblage.

Frorup's education was in traditional sculpture, receiving her BFA in Sculpture at the University of Tampa and MFA in sculpture from Syracuse University, College of Visual and Performing Arts, graduating with Summa Cum Laude Honors. After university, Frorup returned home to work with her father in construction, an inherited skill that has made the practice of assembling challenging objects a playful exercise for the artist. As Frorup was married to an American, the family relocated to Florida and while she maintained a rigorous practice, Frorup moved from construction to teaching art. She is currently the Associate Professor of Art at The University of Tampa where she has received awards including The Outstanding Faculty award College of Arts and Letters for Scholarship (2017).

Her work in major international collections includes The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, The Venice Biennale, Exposició Art Camp 2012, collecció FEDA International through Andorra and Unesco. Recent exhibitions include The Sixth National Exhibition, National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas, The Global Caribbean: Focus on Caribbean Landscape, Little Haiti Cultural Complex, Art Basel Venue, Miami, Florida, Musée International des Arts, Modestes in Sète, France, The Florence Biennale 2015, Florence, Italy and solo exhibition, The Inner Temple Project, National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas.