Curator Bob Weil says, "I was intrigued about a number of elements in this image. The shadowy masculine presence in the middle distance with a bit of a swagger to his stance, the reclining female nude in the foreground with the crease running down the center of her body (as if she is internally divided about her next move), and the serene, even blissful look on her face that belied any concern about may happen next.

The background is a bit surreal and suggests a dream (is she subject or object?), and the textures and creases separate as much as they connect.

You can imagine any number of narratives to support what is happening in the scene – happy dreamer / imagined lover (but which is which), a moment before the rendezvous or minutes after, or unrequited attention (the man, after all, has his back to our heroine)? Works of art challenge and tantalize, and this collage accomplishes that and stays with you.
 
As part of the process of recognizing competition winners, I like to invite the artist to say something about the backstory underlying the artwork, and to share a bit of technical journey they took in creating the piece (if they’re willing to share this information).

Here is what Diane Kaye had to say about her inspiration in creating the piece:  “Her software matched her up with a handsome guy.  One night he came to dinner, but excused himself to go have a cigarette.  Hoping to seduce him, she dipped into the water.  Suddenly she had a psychic-intuitive vision of him far away, moving away, and she felt like hopelessly staying there in the deep pond, sinking.”
 
And because so many of us enter competitions to see if we can win, we also want very much to see how others achieve  their objectives in the hermetically sealed worlds they create, I like to ask a bit about technique. Because who wouldn’t like to know a bit about another artist’s creative process?

Here is what Diane has to say on this front:  “I searched in my archives for two existing 35mm negatives which would tell a story, and rather than totally overlap them, as I’d previously done, I trimmed most of the sprockets off the one and overlapped them partially, careful to keep the man in a dreamlike illusion, a smaller scale, suggesting further away than the girl. 

The cut edge is the 'water level.'  I held them together in a 4x5 glass negative carrier.”

Addional Review by curator Sandrine Hermand-Grisel:
"This image is really stunning!
It reminded me actually of the surrealist movement in France and the work of Man Ray and Lee Miller. Beautiful composition! I love it, great work!

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