A Colorful Dream

A Program of Exhibits USA with Texas Commission on the Arts and The National Endowment for the Arts

Jan. 28–March 16, 2025

Forsyth Galleries | Memorial Student Center, MSC 2428

Designed to evoke and capture a sense of childhood fantasy, A Colorful Dream tells a simple coming-of-age story in rich symbolic language that takes the viewer on a journey through the entire spectrum of the rainbow.

A Colorful Dream is a family-friendly, interactive exhibition by contemporary fine art photographer Adrien Broom. The exhibition features a suite of photographs, some of them large in scale, detailing a young girl’s journey as she discovers a series of monochromatic fantasy worlds exploring the rich hues and associations we have with every color in the spectrum. The Huffington Post describes Broom’s photography as “deeply rooted in fairy tales and mythology, reinterpreting figures like Aphrodite and stories like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

Over three years in her studio, Broom constructed eight individual sets composed of objects evoking the essence of each respective color. She then photographed a young girl exploring and traveling through each world, passing through small portals that lead her on a journey through a red world, then orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and lastly a rainbow encompassing all the colors.

Encountering creatures, characters, and vivid landscapes, Broom’s protagonist finds worlds lush, joyful, and even sometimes startling.

In looking at the images, it would be easy to mistake the effects as a digital manipulation of the original photograph. In fact, Broom creates each of these worlds by hand, much like a stage production. These images are not put together using photo-editing software, but are the result of hours of crafting tableaux, so what the viewer sees is in fact what was in front of the camera’s lens during the shoot.