Road and Track, Hancock, West Virginia 23 - 1991

Curator: Standing before us is James Welling’s "Road and Track, Hancock, West Virginia," a photograph from 1991. What strikes you first about this composition? Editor: An almost overwhelming sense of grayness, a study in monochrome. The stark, geometrical lines of the railroad tracks and the telephone poles dominate. Curator: Indeed. Note how the repetitive verticality of the telephone poles and their connecting lines create a kind of symbolic network, perhaps a web connecting communities. These poles often represent the progress, the advancement of civilization, juxtaposed with the older, more established natural landscape. Do you sense that visual tension? Editor: Absolutely. The strict linearity against the organic curve of the road and the somewhat chaotic brush strokes of the trees create an unsettling discord. It’s a fascinating study of geometry versus nature. It reminds me of structuralist concepts, the relationship between binary oppositions forming meaning. Curator: And culturally, railroad tracks have always been a potent symbol—movement, opportunity, but also displacement and division. Think of the westward expansion in the United States and how it transformed the landscape, both physically and socially. Are these linear elements more representative of culture than nature? Editor: Possibly, yet I hesitate to reduce it to that dichotomy. I’m interested in how the repetition generates rhythm. See how your eye moves down the parallel rails, interrupted by the poles, creating a beat. It is beautiful, it draws you in and is satisfying from a design aspect. Curator: It really highlights the convergence of the industrial with the pastoral. The photograph holds, doesn't it? As if waiting to give up some lost bit of Americana, perhaps. Editor: It does. The rigorous formal structures serve to intensify, and elevate an otherwise ordinary roadside tableau. There’s real skill at play in how it's composed.