James Welling: FDB9, 2009-12

This James Welling limited-edition photograph, FDB9, 2009–12, is from his series Fluid Dynamics. The image is featured in James Welling: Monograph (Aperture, 2013).

As a student, Welling was introduced to American Color-Field painting, which became a source of inspiration for his abstract work. Between 1986 and 2006, Welling worked on a series titled Degradés, in which he exposed different parts of photographic paper to different color filtrations using a color enlarger. This series was a precursor to Fluid Dynamics, for which Welling made photograms of water on chromogenic paper, scanned the images, and altered the colors with Adobe Photoshop. Both bodies of work are evidence of his concern with photography’s materiality—especially in the face of technological change—and with the medium’s relationship to painting and sculpture.

Although Welling’s practice has changed over the decades, he has continued to find new ways to apply materials to a photographic surface. As he has said, “I’m interested in finding new ways of applying materials to a surface. Photography is just a different way of applying material and some of my works draw out this process.”

Each limited-edition print is hand-packed with great care and ships from New York within 3–5 days.