Frances Stark's work is characterized by her exploration of the manifold interrelations between art and literature and image and text. Her work on and with script encompasses both art and writing. She often investigates the process of artistic production and the creative act itself. Her finely assembled collages are closely meshed works of various found and invented characters, snippets of text and graphic elements, literary quotations and autobiographical references.

Stark's recent solo exhibition at Portikus, entitled The New Vision, includes 17 new works on paper and canvas, which refer partly to models from classical art, partly autobiographical fragments, partly early works, and partly texts from her immediate professional environment. Stark's unique method in The New Vision clearly demonstrates that by constantly varying the aesthetics and dispensations of the game with the lightest of touches, it is possible to adopt one's own role in the art world's system among the range of analytical, conceptual, and playfully poetic approaches.

Frances Stark is an Assistant Professor of Painting & Drawing and a member of the MFA Core Faculty at the USC Roski School of Fine Arts. Stark received her BA from San Francisco State University in 1991 and her MFA from Art Center College of Design in 1993. She has had one-person exhibitions at Secession in Vienna, grengrassi in London, Marc Foxx in Los Angeles, van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, Galerie Daniel Buchholz in Cologne, Culturgest in Lisbon, CRG Gallery in New York, and Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco. Stark has been in several important group shows, including Learn to Read at the Tate Modern, Fit to Print at Gagosian Gallery, and the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Also a noted writer, Stark's Collected Writing: 1993 - 2003 was published in 2003. Her artworks are included in public collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Judith Rothschild Foundation, the UCLA Hammer Museum, and Fonds Regional d'art Contemporain, Champagne-Ardenne. Born in Newport Beach, California in 1967, Frances Stark lives and works in Los Angeles.