ADELITA (PARADISE) original paper collage


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Size & Details

Size & Details

Original paper collage featuring a cowgirl with sugar skull makeup wearing a vibrant tropical bird pattern dress with ornate jewelry and bold hat. Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertos style contemporary southwest art. All hand-cut paper. Finished in handmade salvaged tin frame and Museum Plexi.

  • Medium: vintage papers on wood
  • Size: 54" H x 44.5" W (framed)
  • Frame: finished in handmade salvaged tin frame with Museum Plexi
  • Hardware: ready to hang with D-rings on back
  • Read the inspiration behind this series and receive a first look at works like her: learn more.
Story

Story

She was suddenly tossed into a vivid and richly beautiful dream... like someone throwing a blanket of candy over her head. - Dolan Geiman

Each She walked into the garden to rest. It had been a long day and the season was hot and balmy. The air tasted liked freshly cut grass and tangerines and she thought about a poem she had heard about a bird. She couldn't remember the name of the poem... Bird of Paradise, maybe?

As she leaned against a tree her simple pale dress wrinkled under her weight. She felt her eyelids getting heavy and decided not to fight it. She was suddenly tossed into a vivid and richly beautiful dream, full of textures, like someone throwing a blanket of candy over her head. In her dream she was wearing a magnetic dress and all the birds and plants were made of metal. They stuck to her dress as she walked along a verdant pathway. She saw relatives that she recognized and some she did not, and they each gave her heartfelt compliments about her beautiful dress.

Outside of her dream it started to rain: the rain drops woke her from her sleep, gently, like someone pulling a blanket of feathers away from her face. She sat up in the garden, and ran her hands over her dress, no longer pale and wrinkled, but bedecked with beautiful birds of paradise.

Process

Process

Each Dolan Geiman collage is crafted from hand-cut vintage papers sourced over decades of exploration and careful categorizing, held dearly until the perfect piece arrives to claim their colors and texture. Look closely and you'll see that each detail, down to the highlights and lowlights, are fashioned from hand-cut paper.

Learn more about Vaquera Sudoeste series and sign up to receive first looks at pieces like her.

process
Limited Series

Limited Series

Each work in Dolan Geiman’s portfolio is unique and hand-crafted. Works indicated with “limited series” are reiterations of a recurring theme or concept.

A Certificate of Authenticity is available upon request.

  • Each piece in a limited series is created with an inimitable collection of found materials: no two are exactly alike, although they may look similar at a glance.
  • Details, colors, specific materials, typography and frame will differ from work to work.

Learn More

Dolan Geiman Paper Collages

Dolan's signature paper collage artwork celebrates America's West and Southwest. Color, composition, and detail come to life in hand-cut vintage materials, many salvaged in Dolan's cross-country travels.

Creating the original collage starts with a wood panel. Dolan pulls vintage sheet music from his vast collection and applies these to the wood, first with glue, then with a top layer of whitewash paint. In many prints, this background layer of sheet music peeks through.

Next, Dolan draws the outline for the original collage in graphite atop the sheet music.

Dolan returns to his extensive trove of collected papers – think magazines, antique textbooks, handwritten letters salvaged from abandoned farmsteads - and begins pulling the ideal colors for the piece. He cuts each piece of material by hand and carefully layers into the artwork. These collages are carefully crafted from thousands of small papers: no two are exactly alike.

Dolan's paper collages are finished in a handmade frame constructed from salvaged metal or a modern, minimal wood or metal frame.