Image Maker Fran Forman

Fran Forman was a 3 time contributor to the creative collaboration, which is how I became familiar with her work. When I checked out Fran's website, I was immediately transfixed by the wonderful, fanciful images. I am so happy to be sharing her work with you as it certainly expands our thinking on what is possible. I love the imagination and creativity that is evident in each and every piece.

The following text is from Fran...

In all honesty, I don't really consider myself a 'photographer' but rather a maker of images. My background is so varied, and until I went to college, I assumed I'd "do something with art" (I loved drawing, and still do). But it was the 60s, and "doing art" felt too self-serving and anachronistic, and "saving the world" demanded community service. When I did start taking photographs (in the 70s), I was much more interested in the story-telling aspect of it, so I gravitated towards creating sequential and surrealistic images, often expressing my fascination with time and its inexorable march. I got my Masters in Graphic Design when I realized I couldn't support myself making weird photos, and Graphic Design offered the ability to combine fine art with commerce, psychology, and sociology.

While my kids were young, I made collages for and with them, and after my mom died in 1988, I found a treasure-trove of old family photos which made their way into these collages. Then, in 1992, I was introduced to Photoshop. And here we are. It seems as if I've come full circle: drawing (with a stylus), collages, graphics, old photos, weird images, all in the service of halting that inexorable march of time passing.

"The camera was the first machine of depiction, and for a time we believed it to tell only the truth. In the end, perhaps all the images we create share a strange mixture of magic, truth, and illusion. And in this soil sprouts metaphor, which is the source of meaning."      Edward Bateman

In merging photography with painting, portraiture with dreamed landscapes, technologies and generations, my images blur the boundaries between the real and the unreal, re-imagining worlds that, like our own, remain forever a mystery. I invite the viewer to look closely, to engage with me in an imaginative discourse, and to enter into a world of dreams and memory.

The visual narratives of my photo collages dissolve the boundaries of time; they connect my fantasies and dreams with the generations that have come before 

me as I attempt to bring them back to life.

My artistic process is an act of intuition, investigation, and the construction and amalgam of, at first glance, seemingly random objects. These dream-like visions and altered habitats are constructed of photographs I’ve taken with a variety of cameras, as well as discarded portraits of long-forgotten ancestors. Yet these constructed images are intended to evoke a sense of transience, longing, memory, and, despite our yearning for connectedness, the dislocation we all too often experience.

Experimenting with light, form, texture, and color In composing my images, I pay tribute to the collage artists and Pictorialists of the late 19^th century, as well as to the magic realists and surrealists who followed. I also draw inspiration from color-field painters such as Rothko and from artists who use vibrant color, visual narratives and symbolism to contemplate the human condition.  I am indebted to, among others, the juxtaposed assemblages of Cornell, the surrealism of Magritte, and the poetry and photography of Duane Michals.