Barriane Franks is a graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana (B.A. in Art), Columbia University (M.A. in Art History), and is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. student in the Art & Architectural History department at the University of Virginia. Barriane's passion for the Arts of the Italian Renaissance was sparked early on through her visual arts training, thereby, leading to her current research interests on cross-cultural connections between the African continent and Italy through trade, travel, and other communications as evidenced through the artistic depictions of African people in Italian Renaissance art. She first examined this topic in her preliminary work, "The De-Evolution of African Depiction in Arts of the Italian Renaissance," funded by Xavier University of Louisiana, her undergraduate institution's, GRADStar research grant and currently in consideration for XULANexus journal. This research led to her acceptance to Columbia University, and she will continue to expound on her research interests and augment her work throughout her doctoral studies at the University of Virginia. Prior to her enrollment, Barriane engaged in a plethora of academic and museum internships and programs including curatorial internships at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) and co-curated the "With Her Hands: Women's Fiber Art from Gapuwiyak The Louise Hamby Gift" exhibition at the Kluge-Ruhe Art Collection of the University of Virginia (UVA), with research from the latter, “Crafting Culture: The Spiritual and Secular Nature of Yolŋu Necklaces,” being presented at The Leadership Alliance National Symposium in Hartford, CT and published in the exhibition catalog. She has also presented at Baton Rouge Community College Art Fair in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and The National Association of African Studies and Affiliates Convention in Dallas, Texas. Furthermore, she has participated in various internships focused on visual art and art history including those with the Alliance of HBCU Museums and Galleries, through discussions with professionals in art fields such as conservation, art history, curation, and more facilitated by universities such as the Bard Graduate Center, Fisk University, Tuskegee University, the University of Delaware/Winterthur, Princeton University, and Yale University as well as some arts institutions including LACMA, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While at Columbia, she was awarded two fellowships towards her thesis research– in Summer 2022, she was an HBCU Fellow at the Bard Graduate Center, allowing her access to their extensive collections on historical costume, and she was selected as the 2022–23 Casa Muraro Graduate Research Fellow by Columbia University’s GSAS to conduct on-site research in Venice, Italy. In Spring 2023, she served as a curatorial intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Robert Lehman Collection, conducting provenance research for the “Hidden Faces" exhibition which debuted in Spring 2024. A scholar-artist, her passion for research is matched by her artistic fervor with several pieces in her acclaimed “Social Injustice Series” having won several awards and been displayed nationally at museums and galleries such as the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Purdue University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Kelwood Contemporary Art, Alabama State University Civil Rights Museum, Ashé Powerhouse Theater, and 5 Press Gallery. She has had two public solo exhibitions at Xavier University of Louisiana, with three works bought by and currently on display at the university center and college dorm respectively. As she pursues her scholarly endeavors, Barriane eagerly anticipates increasing her art historical knowledge and hopes to contribute to the budding field of Africans in the Italian Renaissance to potentially reveal answers to historically hidden narratives