Nanci France-Vaz, Ode to a Flower Child, oil, 34 x 24.
As a 1970s Brooklyn schoolgirl, Nanci France-Vaz stood in awe of that era’s flower children. “Their message was peace and love,” she says. “Watching the news today, I found myself wishing we could go back to that time. I decided to create a painting about hope.” The result is her winning oil-on-linen ODE TO A FLOWER CHILD. It’s among the first in a series of 10 to 12 figurative paintings, each accompanied by a poem she’s writing, which she plans to publish in 2023 as a book entitled Bohemian Spirits. The volume distills her personal life experiences of that era.
France-Vaz’s earliest artistic efforts consisted of drawing pictures at the kitchen table, including copying the cover of James Hilton’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips “and spending all day trying to get the face right.” She also dedicated herself to drama and ballroom dancing, “but my parents were dead set against my pursuing anything in the arts,” she says, “so at Brooklyn College, I majored in phys ed and minored in sports medicine.” Not until her mid-30s, “when I couldn’t take it anymore,” did she enter Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts, earning a bachelor’s degree before further honing her classic representational skills through atelier-style training at Grand Central Academy.
She began taking portrait commissions, but client requests for unrealistic adjustments helped her realize about 10 years ago that “I’m a storyteller, not a plastic surgeon.” Since then, France-Vaz has dedicated herself to figurative paintings “that tell the stories I always have in my head,” inspired by sources ranging from Arthurian legends to Edgar Allan Poe—not to mention a halcyon decade in her own life.
Find France-Vaz’s work at Abend Gallery, Denver, CO; Dacia Gallery, New York, NY; and www.nancifrancevaz.com.
This story appeared in the December 2022/January 2023 issue of Southwest Art magazine.