James Welling: Choreograph

A detail view of James Welling’s 2016 work, Untitled Dance Company

George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York

2020–2021

July 26, 2020–January 3, 2021  “By choosing to use ‘choreograph,’ drawing with space, as a noun, I am noting its similarity to ‘photograph,’ drawing with light.” — James Welling  James Welling’s recent body of work integrates several strands of his artistic exploration over the past forty years. Each Choreograph work consists of a large inkjet print combining images of dance, architecture, and landscape in layers of distinctive, luminous color. The works prompt associations with bodies in motion, eliciting sensations of momentum, force, and rhythm.  Every work in the series begins with three black-and-white photographs, each digitally entered into one of three color channels—red, green, or blue—in Photoshop and combined into a single image. Welling makes adjustments until the picture resolves to its final form, which he secures by making an inkjet print. The result is a dense visual field infused with the science of color perception, the psychosomatic experience of physical space, and the history of photographic representation.  Learn more at George Eastman Museum.