This book is dedicated to those who take the time to participate IN THE CONVERSATION THAT IS ART.
With those words Fran Forman begins to take us on a journey through…or better said…a conversation with her photomontage (or photopainting) work. Recognizing that each viewer takes away her or his own experience from a piece of art, Forman has structured this book with impressions from ordinary people to her works. The result is fascinating as one gains insights into the viewers as well as the art, enriching the experience and encouraging the reader to articulate his or her own impressions.
By integrating her contemporary photography with historical periods and various settings around the world, Fran Forman creates a world of illusion; upon closer inspection, what appears ordinary suggests an underlying tension and an aura of mystery. Expressed in the diffused colors of twilight and chiaroscuro, her images blur the boundaries between photography, late Renaissance painting, and film noir.
Forman’s photo-paintings explore those liminal and in-between moments – of coming and leaving, innocence and confidence, shadow and light, night and day, absence and connection, loss and longing, and not quite the past and not yet the future. Portals, both real and metaphorical, frequent her layered, complex, and often dreamlike images.
Her work is recognized for imbuing harmonious compositions and for her explosive use of color, light, and shadow. As a cinematographer writes a narrative with movement and sound, Forman writes with still images, where the images have no power except through their positions and relationship. It is those relationships that elicit emotions of desire, vulnerability, and a desperate longing for connections.
Readers will be surprised and delighted right away by the images themselves and the skill with which Forman executes them. But they will also want to spend time looking deeper into the montages to come to their own conclusions about their meanings.
Fran Forman’s work is included in major museums and private collections worldwide, including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum,Washington, DC, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, England, The Massachusetts State House (The Griffin Museum of Photography), AfterImage Gallery (Dallas), the University of North Dakota, Galeria Photo/Graphica (Mexico), and the Pucker Gallery (Boston) have recently given solo exhibitions of Forman’s work. She has won numerous significant awards and prizes: most recently, first place from the Julia Margaret Cameron awards, 2nd place from Lucie Foundation and the Photography Gala awards, and First Place, Gold and Silver from PX3 Prix de la Photographie, Paris. Forman was also the Commencement Speaker at the New England School of Photography in 2018 and has lectured broadly, including the Masters of Digital Photography at School of Visual Art in New York. Her first book, Escape Artist: The Art of Fran Forman, was selected as one of the Best Photo Books of 2014 by Elizabeth Avedon.
She is an Affiliated Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, a recipient of several grants and Artist Residencies, and teaches advanced photo-collage internationally. Additionally, she is often jurors and curates photo exhibitions.
Forman studied art and sociology at Brandeis University, received an MSW in psychiatric social work, and then an MFA from Boston University. She resides in the Boston area.
The Rest Between Two Notes: Selected Works by Fran Forman
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9781912690381
Published: 31 Mar 2020
Publisher: Unicorn
Dimensions: 224 pages – 280mmmm
http://www.unicornpublishing.org/
