Frank Vega (b. 1992, Ecuador) is a transdisciplinary artist working with sculpture, painting, and hybrid objects. His practice centers around cultural traditions, object ontology, and quotidian technologies. With this research and production he hopes develop new forms for preservation. Different materials, surfaces, and shapes help Vega build ecosystems that interact, creating empowering narratives. He received his Master of Fine Arts in 2022 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2018 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), North Park University (Chicago), Devening Projects (Chicago), MDW Fair at Mana Contemporary (Chicago), El Lobi (Puerto Rico), The Green Gallery (Milwaukee), Koik Contemporary (Mexico City), and the Krannert Art Museum (Champaign). He has been awarded a Teaching Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Frankenthaler Scholarship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Florence M. House Scholarship, and the Helen E. Platt Blake Scholarship from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as well as a Leroy Neiman Fellowship from the Ox-Bow School of Art.

Statement

Through painting, sculpture, installations, and performance, I craft narratives that challenge collective perceptions of material, form, and meaning, blending organic and industrial elements into harmonious compositions. My work spans diverse modes of inquiry, developing tools that subvert dominant systems by redesigning and repurposing everyday objects while exploring new ideas of completeness.

At the core of my practice lies the concept of “Desencanto”—a process that questions traditional notions of value and utility, emphasizing sustainability and innovation within the urban context. For an object to undergo the Desencanto process, it must first be broken, disassembled, or flipped, liberating it from its original function and completing the transformation.

Through this practice, I aim to reimagine how value systems are constructed, inviting new ways of thinking about materiality and purpose.