collage of found illustrations
7 x 5 7/8 in.
Dean Smith's works emerge from a deep engagement with time and space, employing drawing, collage, and video to trace the delicate rhythms of the world around us. Not meant to be hurried through but rather to be experienced with quiet attention, they reveal layers of thought and feeling that are both meditative and precise. Through subtle shifts and understated complexity, Smith invites us to pause and consider what often lies just beneath the surface—an exploration of the unseen forces that shape our world.
collage of found illustrations
7 5/16 x 4 7/16 in.
The environment collage series presents time both as rumination and physical fact. Constructed of fragments sourced from 19th century engraving illustrations (originally published in journals such as The Illustrated London News), these collages simultaneously mirror the time of the source material and obfuscate it. While the original images were representational (meant to illustrate news events or travelogues of the day), in my work the various collaged elements are arranged to abstract rather than reveal their figural nature. What becomes articulated is a deeply oneiric space.
collage of found illustrations
9 3/4 x 7 1/8 in.
To play with time is to explore the condition of reverie, and as Gaston Bachelard states, “Reverie is not a mind vacuum. It is rather the gift of an hour which knows the plenitude of the soul.” The collages thus become mysteries to be savored, not problems to be solved.
collage of found illustrations
5 4/16 x 3 3/4 in.
collage of found illustrations
6 1/2 x 6 1/2 in.
For a number of years before his death, I was an assistant to Bruce Conner. About a year before he died, Bruce wanted to create a new series of his iconic collages. Being of declining health, Bruce no longer had motor control in his hands to perform the delicate cutting and assembly needed to create such work. He asked that I help him, which largely meant that I was free do what I wanted; light supervision, of course! Not previously working in collage, I found I had an affinity for the material and mindset. Upon Bruce’s death, his wife Jean, in an amazing act of generosity, gifted me all of his source material. The rest, as they say, is history.
collage of found illustrations
7 1/2 x 6 3/4 in.
collage of found illustrations
9 3/4 x 6 1/4 in.
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Dean Smith creates drawings, collages, and videos. His work reflects upon the measure of time, the peculiarities of space, and the ceaseless human impulse to render the invisible visible by inviting us to join him in a slow, rich meditation on an idea as it unfolds to its conclusion.
A recipient of a California Arts Council Fellowship Award, Smith's work is placed in prominent public collections, including The British Museum; Hammer Museum; LACMA; Buffalo AKG Art Museum; The Art Institute of Chicago; Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
He is represented by Anglim/Trimble, San Francisco, and Eli Ridgway Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal, and has had solo presentations at Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica; Marvelli Gallery, New York; and Gallery Joe, Philadelphia in addition to numerous group exhibitions in galleries nationally and internationally.
Smith lives and works in Oakland, California.
For Your Viewing Pleasure
BRUCE CONNER (1933–2008) was an influential American artist known for his pioneering work in various media, including film, assemblage, drawing, and photography. A key figure in the San Francisco Beat Generation, Conner’s work explored themes of counterculture, impermanence, and the human condition.
MAX ERNST'S body of work uniquely captures the splintering of the twentieth-century Western psyche. Striking and playful, the German surrealist’s collages, created throughout his life, reflect his keen eye for materials and an enduring curiosity about the interplay of harmony and dissonance.
JEAN CONNER, born in 1933 in Lincoln, Nebraska, made her long-awaited solo museum debut at 89 with two exhibitions in California’s Bay Area. A San Francisco resident since 1957, Conner’s career has been closely tied to the artistic legacy of her late husband, Bruce Conner.
WILLIAM BURROUGHS the iconic writer and Beat Generation figure, applied the principles of collage to both his writing and photography. Using his “cut-up” technique, he physically cut and rearranged text to create fragmented, nonlinear narratives that challenged conventional storytelling. In photography, he employed similar methods, manipulating images to reflect his radical vision of language, consciousness, and reality.
ROMARE BEARDEN was a prominent artist whose collages in the 1960s and 1970s explored themes of culture, memory, and identity. His layered compositions using magazine clippings and photographs remain influential in modern art.
Out and About
What to watch, read, and experience, as curated by the Collé team.
▼ READ
The Cutting Satire of Hannah Höch’s Collages – Hyperallergic
Hannah Höch’s art was disruptive, irreverent, and, for its time, extremely loud. It presaged, by at least 80 years, present-day discourse over the ubiquity of mass-media imagery in the digital age. Assembled Worlds at the Belvedere Museum is the first major museum retrospective in Austria dedicated to the iconic German artist.
▼ EBAY
Collage, Assemblage, and the Found Object by Diane Waldman
Waldman examines how artists have used collage, assemblage, and found objects to break traditional artistic boundaries, transforming everyday materials into powerful visual expressions. The book provides historical context, artist case studies, and critical analysis, showing how these techniques revolutionized modern art by questioning notions of originality, composition, and meaning.
▼ LISTEN
Cocteau Twins – Four-Calendar Café
Released in 1993, this album is a dreamlike journey where shimmering guitars and Elizabeth Fraser's haunting vocals delicately intertwine. It’s a tender and reflective work, full of vulnerability and quiet strength.
