Franck de Las Mercedes

Who is Franck de Las Mercedes?

Franck de Las Mercedes, is a Nicaraguan American visual artist raised in New York City. With a self-obtained education, straight from the aisles of the NYC Public Library, de Las Mercedes has emerged as one of the country's most prolific visual artists in recent years.

From his provocative portraits to his large scale abstract paintings, Franck de Las Mercedes' work has been described as symbolic, vibrant, colorful, explosive and sometimes disturbing. An intimate journey into the psyche of the artist, Franck's art combines expressionism, photography and collage to illustrate the aftermath of emotionally charged experiences and depictions of how he sees the world around him. Franck experiments with a wide range of concepts, processes, materials and subjects.

In 2006, Franck initiated The Priority Boxes Art Project a peace initiative that has evolved into a movement now embraced by popular culture, mainstream media outlets, schools and art educators across America. From his small studio near the Hudson River, the artist ships abstractly painted, seemingly empty boxes with a label that reads: «Fragile, handle with care: Contains peace» to people around the world.