Original paper collage from the Western Daughters Series features a redhead cowgirl in velvet gold shirt, lighting a cigarette behind a barn on the 4th of July. Contemporary Western art merges hand-cut paper collage with painting. Finished with black frame, acid-free bevel edge mat and Museum Plexi.
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.
