Francesca Dekker

Born in The Netherlands in 1954 she moved to the United States with her husband in 1987. Today, they live in Wilmington with their two sons. Francisca graduated with a master’s degree in Social Work in Amsterdam and worked as a counselor for than 15 + years. After migrating to the U.S., she decided to explore other talents as she experienced a new culture. She taught herself to paint and has been a serious painter since 1999.

In her own words Francisca describes her work, “My style of painting is expressive - often abstract - with fluent movements and contrasting lines.  My colors are always symbolic, vibrant and bold - meant to deepen the sense of motion in body and heart. I am not bound to one technique and always continue to experiment and grow.  Recently, I have focused on figurative expression, bold in colors with over-sized hands, illustrating all that we do with them, and painted with over-sized feet, referring to our connection with the earth.

In addition to painting, I am continually working with live models that inspire me to express myself through abstract, and at times, whimsical and free-form styles of drawing. Utilizing pencil, ink, watercolor and oil pastels, I love to tell a story and to express the humor as well as the seriousness that I see in the human form."