THE COLEMAN COLLECTION

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The Coleman Collection

This is a collection of five seperate art pieces created in conjunction with the artist Randall Coleman.

For this project students were asked to combine rhetoric with visual media they derived from a variety of sources.

Don't Toy With WAR!

This image overlays toy soldiers on a background that is meant to be reminiscent of jungle environments we might have found in conflicts like the Vietnam War. It is meant to make us think about the risk we run of treating war, and the soldiers who fight our wars, as mere playthings rather than considering the full implications of entering into armed conflicts.

Anyone Can Destroy Trees. They Cannot Run Away.

This image, whose tagline is a riff on a line from John Muir's "The American Forests", is an up close shot of a diorama the students created using mainly materials from outside. The image is meant to comment on the way that deforestation has become institutionalized in America.

Live the City Life, Live the American Dream

This image, which was created through an entirely digital medium, is meant to contrast our romanticized imaginings of the American Dream and urban living with the pollution that is also an aspect of American life and landscape.

Oklahoma! The Prosperous Garden of Eden

This image, which overlays pictures of our students with background elements, is meant to contrast the idyllic "amber fields of grain" image of the American heartland with the reality of tornadoes and the devastating environmental conditions that prevailed during the Dust Bowl.

Love Opens Your Eyes

This image is meant to ironically comment on the stark difference between perception and reality for people who are in love. The subject's eyes are open but completely focused to the exclusion of the world around him. This message is further heightened by the fact that he is reading Romeo and Juliet, a play about two people who are fatally blinded by their love.