Okanoue
Toshiko created collages that combined symbols from two visions of modernity—one
Japanese, one Western. Using photographic fragments from Western magazines,
such as Vogue and Life, she constructed works that she
described as “droplets of dreams.” The artist described her initial experiments
with collage: “I cut out the photographs that fit my dreams and tried arranging
them on black folded paper. Those scraps of my fantasies turned into strangely
interesting things, things I would not have thought of.”

Here, against the background of a Manhattan
skyline from Life magazine, the
headless torso of a female figure in a flowing white ball gown engages in a
two-fisted gunfight propelled by the wing of a white bird, while a cowboy is
hurled from the sky.