Here is part two of Dream Eye. These images are all photo-collages from various series I’ve done over the decades.
Some are close ups of larger collages so you can see the dream eye portion.
Photography © 2022 Marty Coleman | martycoleman.com
I worked at a restaurant named Eulipia in San Jose, California from 1981-1994 while I was going to graduate school and starting out as a college art instructor. I finally left when I moved to Tulsa to start a new career in Interactive Design.
This collage was a result of a photo shoot with three of my co-workers from the restaurant. We did the shoot in one of their backyards while they were sunbathing on a hot summer day. I had been creating a series of collages that used body part close ups combined with sky or other neutral colored backgrounds.
This collage resulted from having all the photos on my drawing board which was a large door actually attached to two drawing board bases. As I laid them out I started seeing a flow to the images. I originally had only one row, with the body below and the sky above. At that point it seemed like a landscape. But I had a lot of photos from the shoot and I laid out a second row to see if those photos might have a different rhythm and flow to them.
I got the idea to turn the top row over and the blue matched up and became a river in my mind. Then it was just a matter of finding the right place for each photo so the flow of the river was pleasing to my eye.
I have 10 of my photo collages in a group photography show. It opens this coming Friday evening in Stillwater, OK. Come to it if you can!
Exhibit One Gallery
105 N. Main Street
Stillwater, OK
I like this one because of the simplicity of the statement that I allowed to show
through combined with the scary tribal type face image. But I also love it because of
personal reasons, the woman is my ex-sister-in-law and she was the model who would be
enthusiastic about most anything I would suggest to do, including getting her face
painted as seen here. Also the background is a very memorable image from my ex-wife’s
house. The blinds would make a beautiful pattern with the sunlight in the late
afternoon and there was a hanging stained glass piece in the window that would cast
it’s color with the blinds straight lines.
This is the second in a week long posting of a series I did from about 1986-1993. This
is one of my favorite of the series because I love the transition of the ocean and the
clouds into her body and the dimension brought in by the hedge/sidewalk image on the
right side.
I love the simplicity of the statement as well. ‘Know you know’.
The Rejection Suite – A new week, a new series of old. This one is my ‘rejection letter’ series. I applied
for full-time, college level teaching jobs in fine art for approximately 8 years, from
1985-1993. I never did land that job. I started to take the rejection letters and
collage some of my rejected photos on top of the letter. I let show through from the
letter a word or series of words that had power and meaning out of context.
This page was filled with questions that I answered by using letter press letters (the
old fashion way, before digital, of graphic designing text with fonts). The model and
I were at the beach in Santa Cruz, California and I took close ups of her against a
cliff to collage. These were from the proof sheet that was made of the shots.
The idea when I took the photos making up this collage was to get my client up against
one of her favorite pieces of furniture, a large armoire / wardrobe closet. Later, when I
cut up the proof sheet into pieces to do a mock up of the piece I realized how
crucifix-like the pose was. This led me to this page and it’s challenge to think about
beauty and pain/hurt together.
This is 4th in the week long series from my ‘Sketchbook with Voices’
that I worked in back in the 80s and 90s.
She wasn’t sure what the photos were going to turn out like, and either was I. I
loved the light in the lobby where I worked and this student happened by one morning
as the sun reflected off the granite floor.
I liked her red complexion but when I worked half the collage up in black and white
and took out 2 of the 3 channels I also loved the porcelain look of her skin. This
got me thinking about how others might perceive her in different ways; red, white,
porcelain, ruddy, however, her perception of her self, her truth is the same no
matter who she is in front of. That is how I came upon the title for this piece.
It is in the ‘Truths and Things I Made Up About This Woman’ series, even with the
variant title.
