My image-making begins with an idea that is informed by a memory, a concern, an emotion, a physical space, a reaction to external events, or perhaps even the music that is always on in my studio. I shoot in various locations around the world - landscapes, architecture, animals both alive and dead, and of course people.  I digitally alter and transpose photographic content to interpret and transform images grounded in internal experience with those of concrete reality. I let the process and my intuition take over as I repaint, add and subtract. I use color, chiaroscuro, texture and harmony as characters within the composition. After multiple test prints and revisions, I collaborate with a Master Printer to produce limited editions using archival pigment inks on the finest papers.

Fran Forman's photo paintings have been exhibited widely, both locally and internationally. She creates images out of fragments of her original photographs, which are captured during extensive travels. Fran has participated in many group shows and mounted solo exhibitions at, among others, the Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, National Trust, UK; The Massachusetts State House and The Griffin Museum of Photography; Pucker Gallery, Boston; and Photo/Grafica, San Miguel de Allende. Fran has won significant multiple awards and prizes; in 2018 she was awarded second prize from the International Photo Gala Awards for her series In the Shadows of Life. Her works are in many private collections, as well as the permanent collections of: the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (Washington, DC); the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Grace Museum (Texas); the Sunnhordland Museum (Norway); and the County Down Museum (Northern Ireland). She is an Affiliated Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis and teaches photographic collage internationally. Fran studied art and sociology at Brandeis University, received an MSW in psychiatric social work, and then an MFA from Boston University. Fran makes her home in the Boston area and on Cape Cod, where history and light inspire her art-making each day.