Her work, which addresses race, gender, and class issues, combines personal, pop-cultural, and historical imagery.
She received her BA from Kent State University,[1][2] and her MFA in Interdisciplinary Book & Paper Arts from Columbia College Chicago where, in 2013, she wrote her thesis titled The Two Thousand & Thirteen Narrative(s) of Naima Brown[3] that brought to life a girl changeling on the precipice of young adulthood and has received recognition for her work from such prestigious programs as the Arts Incubator[4] at the University of Chicago.
[7][8][9] Franklin's artwork includes themes of surrealism and utopic and dystopic visions, with subtexts of black beauty, self-reflection, and the African Diaspora.
[2] Her collages have also been used on the covers of several poetry collections,[1] including John Murillo’s Up Jumps the Boogie (2010)[14] and Lita Hooper’s Thunder in Her Voice (2010).
[20] Franklin's writing was influenced by the poets of the Black Arts Movement, including Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez.
[25] Dreams in Jay Z Minor was a collaboration with Amanda Williams (artist) and centers around utilizing male figures as muses.
[10][28] Like Water was an exhibition at the Center for Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC), curated by Dara Epison, and ran from October–December 2015.
[32][33] From February 12, 2016 until March 4, 2016, Franklin’s exhibition Heavy Rotation was held at Lacuna Artist Lofts in Chicago.
[2][34] to take root among the stars was held at the Poetry Foundation from September 27, 2018 - January 24, 2019 and coincided with the publication of Under the Knife [35] Speculative Retrievals at the Salina Art Center is a group exhibition which runs from June 7-July 28, 2019 and also features the work of Julia Goodman and Sahar Khoury, who are also paper artists.