Image © Fran Forman
The Griffin Museum of Photography celebrates the opening of
its new gallery at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, with
an exhibit of the work of Fran Forman.
The exhibit, Alchemy of Memory, runs July
23 through August 30 in the Griffin Museum ’s Atelier Gallery
at the Stoneham Theatre. A reception with the artist is August
16, 4:30-6 p.m.
“We are very excited about our new collaboration with
the Stoneham Theatre,” says Paula Tognarelli, executive
director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “Together
our two organizations provide the public with a very strong offering
of imagery coupled with performance.
"It is so fitting that we
open our new venture with Alchemy of Memory as Fran
Forman’s digital montages blend a dash of certainty with
a pinch of whimsy.”
With a background in psychology, design and photography, Forman
creates photographic images that combine portraiture, dreamed
landscapes, and the natural world.
"My work creates juxtapositions in time,’’ says
Forman. "It also re-imagines relationships of scale and
physical possibility. Although my images violate the laws of
physics, they honor the interdependence and connections of humanity
with the animals, insects, and plants which populate the natural
world.’’
Forman's collaged images often begin with tintype portraits
of ordinary mid-19th century Americans, on which she "paints,’’ reviving
the fashion of that time. She replaces the original studio backdrops
with her own invented photographic reality.
"I hope to suggest
the connection of humble portraiture to contemporary technology,
children to the cosmos, humanity to the natural world, and the
spiritual to the physical," says Forman.
Forman has a MFA in photography and design and has held a succession
of positions in the fields of illustration and design. Between
her professional life and raising two daughters, she continued
to create her personal art, combining her skills with a passion
for surrealism, paradox, illusion, assemblage, the non-human
world, and dislocations of time and space.
Forman is a visiting scholar at the Women's Studies Research
Center at Brandeis University and also teaches workshops in digital
montage. Her work has been exhibited and published widely and
she has won many awards and prizes.
The Griffin Museum's Atelier Gallery at the Stoneham
Theatre is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 1-6 p.m. , and one
hour before each theater performance. The gallery can be accessed
through the Stoneham Theatre’s lobby at 395 Main Street
in Stoneham , MA.
The Stoneham Theatre is a professional nonprofit regional theater
that presents eight shows a year. For more information, visit www.stonehamtheatre.org. |
