FLOWERS - JAMES WELLING IN CONVERSATION WITH LYNNE TILLMAN

Sep 30, 2026

Conversation between Lynne Tillman and James Welling explores the origins of Welling’s artistic drive, from family influences in painting and watercolors to his early encounters with the printing plant’s process camera and darkroom work. Welling explains how learning photography took time, and how limitations after Cal Arts led to liberating control over his own images. The discussion centers on how photographs can be organized, transformed, and kept open, particularly through the “Flowers” series, where representational and abstract elements continually shift, challenging instant recognition and redefining beauty.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages72

Reading Time1 h 51 min

AccessFree to download

FLOWERS

JAMES WELLING IN CONVERSATION WITH LYNNE TILLMAN

JAMES WELLINGFLOWERS Digitized by the Internet Archivein 2019 https://archive.org/details/jameswellingflow0Owell # FLOWERS # JAMES WELLINGFLOWERS DAVID ZWIRNER NEW YORK # JAMES WELLING IN CONVERSATION WITH LYNNE TILLMAN LYNNE TILLMAN:Can you say,Jim,why you became an artist? JAMES WELLING:That's a difficult question.I've neverbeen asked. LT:Was there something in your past that drew you to it? JW:I liked to draw in elementary school,and my grandfatherwas a Sunday painter.We had his paintings in the house,but he died before I was born.I was very close to my grand-mother,his wife,and she would tell me stories about him.My uncle is an artist,and my father,when I was about fiveyears old,took up watercolors.One of my earliest memoriesis standing with him by a river as he painted. LT:Then there was art around you,thinking and talking aboutit,too. JW:Yes.My father worked for a printing company.He wasa salesman.His company did a lot of catalogues for museumsand galleries.The first darkroom and the first camera I eversaw were in the printing plant. LT:There are many reasons why you would have becomeinterested in photography,in making art. JW:I think one of the reasons it took me so long to getto photography is that,when I went into that first darkroomat my Dad's plant,I saw a process camera that had HELLwritten on the front of it.I remember feeling terrified at seeingthe word "hell"spelled out.Later I learned that Hell wasthe name of a Swiss company that made the camera. LT:That's very funny.But what did you mean when you said thatwas “one of the reasons it took me so long to get to photography”? JW:When I was at Cal Arts,I did some photo pieces and madevideos.After graduation,I didn't have access to video equipment,and I struggled with what to do.At Cal Arts,no one wasinterested in craft.You'd have someone else print your photos.And when it finally occurred to me that I could make myown photographs,that I could set up a darkroom and makeprints,it was tremendously liberating. LT:What is it,do you think,you're looking for when you makea picture? JW:One of the things I want is to make what I see,to giveit a physical form.I also want to,I don't know if“manipulate”is the right word,but I want to control it,to organize andmassage what I see and put it on a piece of paper. LT:In a sense,to change what you see around you. JW:To change it in response to what I'm seeing,not necessarilyto improve it,but to make it my own. LT:The range in your work is very broad.If you have a signaturestyle,I think,it's to defy one.Do you want to reject the notionof a signature? JW:Perhaps,from the outside,it looks like I work in differentstyles,that I'm rejecting a signature style,but I think the longerI make photographs,the more it seems to me implicit in thematerials of photography that you can do very different things with it.I myself am incapable of settling on just one wayof working with the medium. LT:Do you think it's because you're a restless person? JW:I don't know.Maybe I am a restless person.I never formallystudied photography,so perhaps that helps me to work morefreely.When I start something,I want to jump a few chaptersforward.I'm able to see that if you can do this,then,of course,that would necessarily follow.If I'd been trained technically,I might never have skipped those steps.There's also the fact thatI always have multiple projects going on at the same time,and this is probably another reason why people have the impres-sion that I don't have a signature style.And I keep finding newthings to do with photography. LT:I think that's exciting in your work.Does it matter to youwhether you're making an abstraction or a representational image? JW:Increasingly,I'm finding less and less of a difference betweenrepresentational and so-called abstract pictures.There arealways representational and abstract elements in any photograph.For instance,the white border on a print is a photogram,theshadow of the bla

FAQs

What initially drew James Welling to art and photography?

Welling cites childhood drawing and stories from his grandfather, along with early exposure to painting and watercolors. His entry into photography was shaped by his first darkroom experience, including an encounter with a process camera from a Swiss company called “Hell.”

How did Welling describe his motivation for making photographs?

He wants to give what he sees a physical form and control the image-making process by organizing and manipulating the visual information. He aims to make the photograph his own, not simply improve what he sees.

Why does Welling consider representational and abstract images to be connected?

He increasingly sees little difference between representational and “abstract” pictures because every photograph contains both representational and abstract elements. He also points to physical aspects like borders and shadows that function as photograms.

Sep 30, 2026

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