Marie Franco is a Peruvian-Venezuelan artist based in South Florida and a 2024 alumni of New World School of the Arts, where she earned a BFA in Painting with a minor in Art History. Her practice centers painting as a form of storytelling rooted in immigrant lived experience. Through portraiture and depictions of shared economic spaces, particularly flea markets and swap shops, she explores themes of migration, labor, commerce, identity, and community. These informal marketplaces function as sites of cultural exchange, economic survival, and belonging for working-class immigrant communities and are deeply connected to Franco’s personal history. After immigrating to the United States, her mother worked as a vendor at the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop, a space that continues to shape her practice.

Franco’s process is grounded in observation and documentation. She spends extended time within these markets, building relationships, photographing environments, and studying the visual language of commerce such as objects, signage, and spatial rhythms that define daily life. Rather than focusing solely on individual likeness, her paintings often describe people through objects, shadows, and architectural details, allowing presence to be felt even when figures can be absent. Materials are sometimes sourced directly from these sites, reinforcing a reciprocal relationship between the artist, the marketplace, and its community. Alongside her studio practice, Marie is an active art educator working with institutions including Pérez Art Museum Miami, Oolite Arts, the Wolfsonian, and Vizcaya Museum & Gardens.