about the artist
Eliza Frensley was born and raised in Middle Tennessee. She earned her MFA in Studio Art (Printmaking) and a minor in art history from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) and her BFA in Printmaking with Entrepreneurial Studies from Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA.
Her work documents familial and sociological observations by transforming the archival image and her own historical family materials into layered visual narratives, making visible the subtle social and economic divides embedded in inherited domestic narratives and the fabrication of Americanism. Her practice explores how printmaking and photography mediate the construction, fragmentation, and reimagining of personal and collective identity.
Frensley was the recipient of the 2025 Frogman’s Graduate Student Scholarship, a nationally competitive printmaking award and received recognition from UTK for Excellence in Graduate Student Research. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous juried and one-person exhibitions; including the 62nd Annual Juried Competition at the Masur Museum, LA; the Full Court Press Juried Print Exhibition of the Americas at the Art Center of Corpus Christi, TX; the Delta National Small Prints Exhibition at the Bradbury Art Museum, AR; the 2024 Printmaking Juried Exhibition at Five Points Arts Center in Torrington, CT; imPressed: Don’t Look Up at the Art Gym Gallery in Denver, CO; and in the 11th Annual International Juried Print Exhibition: With precision at the Remarque Print Workshop and Gallery in Albuquerque, NM. She recently returned to Nashville from South Korea where she participated in two artist residencies that concluded in a solo exhibition at the Space Rora Gallery in Seoul, SK.
artist statement
My practice explores how printmaking, film, and photography are utilized globally to construct and reinforce cultural and personal narratives. My current work scrutinizes my family's personal records, tracing how inherited perceptions and expectations are conveyed and perpetuated through creative narratives. As a printmaker, I transform archival images and historical family documents into layered visual representations that function both as repositories of inherited truth and facilitators of fabrication and misinterpretation.
I was raised between two socioeconomically divergent families, each differing in class and outward presentation, yet similar in the nuance of their internal affairs, values, pursuits, exploits, and social etiquette. I examine the commonality of expectations and traditions regarding domesticated behavior, social practice, and private experience. By blending original imagery with disruptive textures and visual metaphors, I animate and exploit the abstracted and romanticized narratives I have inherited. In this way, I compose family secrets and unspoken histories alongside outwardly polished representations of domestic and socially performative life. By intertwining imagery and stories across different timelines, my work challenges the concept of linear time, navigating the space between real and imagined histories. Through the lens of print, I invite people to reflect on how familial identity is constructed, fragmented, and reimagined in their lives.