Lock, 1998/2000
Roland ink-jet print, 16" x 20" (unframed); ed. of 15
$2200

James Welling has produced a new color photograph. As Welling has not worked in color photography since the early 1980s, this is very exciting return to a photographic exploration, as well as the beginning of a new body of work. The image Welling has produced is a verdant-saturated landscape, investigating his interest in the challenge of capturing the color green on film. A fastidious technician, Welling devised a technique for rendering the image by exposing three pieces of 8" x 10" Tri-X black-and-white film through red, green, and blue Kodak separation filters. The photograph was made by scanning the three separate negatives, then assigning them their corresponding color (R, G or B) and layering them in Photoshop®. The image was directly output to a Roland printer by Muse [x] Editions. The overall result is a composite color image of a landscape. Where the color at first glance seems plausibly "normal," it reveals itself upon further examination to offer extraordinary color distortions. Like all of Welling's work, what at first appears conventional and straightforward becomes odd and unexpected upon further viewing.

James Welling is a notable Conceptualist, graduating from CalArts with such other luminaries of that movement as Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, and Matt Mullican. In his near-thirty year career, Welling has developed international success mounting solo exhibitions at the Sprengel Museum Hannover, Hannover; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the Kunstmuseum Luzern, Luzern; Metro Pictures, New York; The Arts Club of Chicago; among many others. In addition, Welling will have a major mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles this winter. James Welling is represented in Los Angeles by Regen Projects.