Lys Akerman-Frank’s Faces Behind The Mask

Banner Image: Akerman-Frank in her studio in Minneapolis.

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Minneapolis is the home of Brazilian/American queer artist Lys Akerman-Frank (they/them), a first-generation immigrant from Brazil who moved to the United States when they was twenty-one years old. When they arrived in the United States, no one was waiting to greet them. Having settled, raised a family, and found a voice and path as an artist, the themes of migration, community, and the self became dominant in shaping their work. 

After thirty-one years, Akerman-Frank continues to dedicate their artistic practice to translating their visions into art, this ranging from photographic works, to puppets, to installations, to their preferred medium, mixed media sculptural masks. Trusting process and intuition, Akerman-Frank submerges their mind into the making of the masks, an excruciating task of trying to symbolically bridge the hidden self and the public world of their subjects. 

What is remarkable about Akerman-Frank’s masks, I argue, is that while they aim at revealing individual stories, they also act as agents of collective transformation by inviting us to step out of the ego and embrace archetypal energies.

Akerman-Frank’s upcoming exhibit Faces Behind The Mask–Exploring Identity, Perception, and Migration at the Normandale Gallery of Fine Arts can be thought  of as part research, part sculpture, and part metaphysical battle between their intuition and chosen subjects. Seven uniquely crafted, captivating, and even intimidating large scale mixed media masks are the product of a kind of simultaneous emotional possession and dispossession of the subjects. One could say the work of Akerman-Frank acts like a conduit in the service of some kind of revelation. 

 

 

Faces Behind The Mask–Exploring Identity, Perception, and Migration centers on seven collaborators (revealed on the labels in the gallery), immigrants and U.S.-born individuals, whose personal stories were gathered through in-depth video and/or audio interviews.

These conversations explore how they see themselves, how they believe others perceive them, and the “masks” they navigate in daily life. From these interviews, I am creating seven large-scale, mixed-media masks—each representing a collaborator’s identity, history, and emotional landscape (Akerman-Frank).

American mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) spoke of the mask as a vehicle for cultural roles, identity, and divine revelation. But a mask also functions as a myth of something greater according to Campbell, it serves as a visible shape or symbol pointing toward the unnamable mystery of existence. While centered on seven collaborators of different backgrounds, Faces Behind The Mask–Exploring Identity, Perception, and Migration, does more than just emotional investigation on its subjects. The project and exhibition is a sound act of creativity, community, and humanhood that highlights the magical capacity of sculpture to achieve descriptive and emblematic aims at the same time. 

 

Image: Hineni, leather, foam, wire, fabric, paper mache, and cotton, 2024. Photo by Nicole Neri.

 

I met Lys Akerman-Frank in the context of the 2024 landmark exhibition Latina and Latinx MN: Re/claiming Space in Times of Change held at the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery of Saint Catherine University in St. Paul. Akerman-Frank had been fashioning masks for quite some time by then. For the occasion, Akerman-Frank exhibited Hineni, a mixed media work consisting of leafs made of leather, foam, wire, fabric, paper mache, and cotton; each leaf standing for each month Akerman-Frank had been in this country (Hineni will be exhibited at Faces Behind The Mask as “the point of origin” for the artist).◼︎ 

 

Faces Behind The Mask–Exploring Identity, Perception, and Migration’s opening reception is on Monday November 9, 4:30-7:00p at the Normandale Gallery of Fine Arts. The gallery is located at 9700 France Avenue South in Bloomington.,Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday 7am-10pm and Friday 7am-5pm. The exhibit runs until December 17. Follow Lys Akerman-Frank on IG @akerlys.

Faces Behind The Mask–Exploring Identity, Perception, and Migration is supported by a 2026 Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Note from the author: I am one of the aforementioned collaborators for whom Akerman-Frank made a mask. I am honored to have been chosen by Lys as one of the subjects. Akerman-Frank’s diligent, kind, and patient conduction of this project has been inspiring. I cannot wait to celebrate their incredible new work.