Fran Beallor

Museum Collections

I'm pleased to have these two works in the collection of the Copelouzos Museum in Athens, Greece. They were created in 2015 and 2020.
"Inspired by dreams of space-time curvature, drawn to the metaphoric nature of distortion, I paint objects within the reflections of curved surfaces."
To see more paintings in my "Accidenal Encouters" series click here.

THROUGH HIS EYES
oil on canvas triptych

The model is my son, Isaac, then just 4 years old. The central, most graphic square, What He Saw, is part of The Unity Canvas* in the permanent collection of the National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Center Site.

The first and third squares show Isaac watching a video of the planes going into the Twin Towers. In the first panel, Through His Own Eyes, the image is reflected in his eye. The third and more enigmatic painting, What if …  is my emotional response to the idea of losing someone in such a searing way.

*The Unity Canvas: over 300 artists from around the world contributed to this collective response to the tragedy of 9/11.

Through His Eyes
September 11, 2001

I dropped my daughter off at her first grade classroom and headed towards the school lobby, where a teacher stopped me, a small radio in his hand (this was pre-iPhone days). “An airplane just crashed into the World Trade Center,” he said. I left with visions of King Kong on the Empire State Building, wondering if indeed some little Cessna had gone off course and collided with one of the Twin Towers. I stopped at a phone booth to check in with my husband and was greeted by, “Where are you?! Your dad was calling, he’s so worried about you!” Whoa … what is that about, I thought. Then Dan told me that an airplane had in fact hit the WTC. In that moment the whole world changed.

At home, I found Dan glued to the TV. Four-year-old Isaac was napping. I looked down at his tender little form and thought about the world we had brought him into. Dan and I discussed how we would talk about the events that unfolded that day with our children.

We knew the attacks would come up in conversation: at school, with friends, relatives, the corner grocer, the librarian – we  we wanted it to come from us, so we decided to show them the video footage. We saw the expressions on their open, little faces and their wide eyes taking in the horror. Isaac was particularly fascinated with the idea of the hijackers’ suicide. “Why would they do it, if they knew they would die?”

Through His Eyes was originally conceived as a Triptych. The central, most graphic square, What He Saw, is now a part of The Unity Canvas, a collective response to the tragedy of 9/11, which was chosen by the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center for their permanent collection.

HIstory of the Unity Canvas
2002 is exhibited at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center – Brooklyn, NY   
2006 is shown in the Port Authority Bus Terminal Display Windows Project Space – New York, NY
2007 is featured in VOICES Preserving 9/11 Sixth Anniversary Forum and Exhibition – Mariott Financial District Hotel, across from the WTC site
2014 Unity Canvas joins the collection of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum – New York, NY