Frances Tulk-Hart
Frances Tulk -Hart is a visual artist, photographer and writer. Raised in London, England,
she moved to NYC following her graduation from Chelsea College of Art and Design to
pursue her career as a storyteller through both art and photography. During the span of
a 24-year long career, Tulk-Hart has travelled the world documenting people and their
stories. As at home shooting celebrities as she is with regular people, Frances brings an
authentic spontaneity to her photos. Always curious, Tulk-Hart is inspired by the lives of
others. This curiosity is what led her to start 5 Minutes With Franny, a project launched
in 2012 wherein she interviews and photographs her subjects at home, documenting
their life’s journey through an intimate lens.
2012 was also the year Tulk-Hart joined the band Love Taps as joint lead vocalist, a role
which would introduce her to her now- husband, the band’s lead singer and songwriter
Jason Rossi. The couple celebrated the birth of their first daughter, Dotti Blu, a year
later. Their second daughter, Frankie, was born in 2017. Motherhood led Tulk-Hart to
begin painting and drawing again. These quiet, free-spirited depictions further showcased
her visual talents through a fresh medium.
In 2018, the world watched in horror as children were separated from their parents at
the U.S.-Mexico border. Devastated, Tulk-Hart began using her platform to protest
these separations, expressing her grief through her art. The resulting work,
entitled 2000 Taken, would come to fruition over the next 365 days. The depth of
empathy she felt for these mothers and children fueled her to wake up each morning
before sunrise to add an additional 30 children to the five-foot by seven-foot drawing
she had taped to her wall. As part of this morning ritual, she also committed to paper
everyday stories of motherhood to further humanize the immigrant parents and
children, rather than simply focus on policy. This daily commitment spanned more than
a year, and in 2019, she finished the drawing; her paper was now filled with more than
5,000 children. Amazed at the ever-expanding painting, her daughter Dotti would often
ask questions about it. In one particularly heartbreaking moment, Dotti pointed to a girl
on the 35-square-foot illustration and said, “Look, mama, she looks just like me.” Tulk-
Hart’s painting made headlines, resulting in a spate of national TV appearances as well as
articles in Vogue Italia and The New York Post.
When the pandemic came, Tulk-Hart was at the tail-end of year-long project in which
she refocused her work inwardly. Through the creation of bi-monthly zines, Tulk-Hart
documented her life and thoughts throughout 2019. These publications combined all of
her mediums into a unified format. They were made available in numbered, limited
editions in major art book stores in NYC (Dashwood Books), Paris ( Yvon Lambert
Books), and the UK(Antenna).
Ever inquisitive about others, Tulk-Hart started The Corona Diaries, a series of
interviews and paintings documenting the lives of people around the world during the
first wave of the Covid-19 lockdown. Speaking to a wide range of experiences— from
frontline workers to actors, small business owners to editors-in-chief— Tulk-Hart
expressed the individual frustrations, fears and small joys that affected us all differently,
while emphasizing that none of us is alone. That same year, American political
commentator and political strategist Heather McGhee approached Tulk-Hart to
illustrate her book, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can
Prosper Together. Published by Penguin Random House, the book was released in
February 2021 and went straight onto the NY Times Best Seller list.
Starting in 2023 Tulk-Hart began a new project called The Flowers We Feel. Updating it
weekly at theflowerswefeel.com it is a photographic and written endeavor, an ode to
flora in all its forms. Digging from a deep archive, Frances combines photos of flowers
with our every day stories.
Tulk-Hart never leaves the house without her camera. She lives with her family in NYC
and Rhode Island.