The British photographer captures fragments of America through the narrow frame of a train window, offering a moving narrative and visual journey along almost 16,000 kilometers of rail track.
"Portrait of America" is Katie Edwards' first solo exhibition, hosted by Observatory Photography Gallery in London. This young British photographer covers a wide range of themes, from editorial commissions (the transgender community in Fiji, backstage at the Birmingham Royal Ballet) to personal subjects (views of London during confinement, the diverse landscapes of different countries). This traveler's work is often featured in The Guardian and on the BBC. Here, she takes us on a road trip - or, should we say, a train trip. Over 16,000 kilometers and 180 hours of travel, she crossed the United States of America three times, from New York to Chicago, from Los Angeles to Seattle, from Chicago to San Francisco, to capture their facets through the prism of a train window. One of the great strengths of the photographer's project is her companion, guide and observer: her wheelchair-bound father. On this rail journey, he positioned himself at the front of the carriage to warn her by walkie-talkie of any noteworthy event.
SPACE AND TIME
Her series documents unique moments in rural and urban life and landscapes, which pass by at the speed of Amtrak trains. Playing with framing, depth of field, symmetry, the interconnection between places and moments... Katie Edwards offers a variation of lights, textures and matte, old-fashioned hues. "The train seemed to dictate the speed of time, spatially dilating or shrinking the world," she explains.
Some photographs resemble landscape paintings, revealing contrasting bands of color, such as the clear sky, snow-capped peaks, clear lake and verdant nature. Others evoke visual poetry (a curved tree giving the impression of forming a circle), or combine unlikely shapes (a row of school buses parked facing mountains lit by the dawn sun), or play with symmetries (a Chicago alley in perfect alignment with electric wires and the road that intersects the railroad tracks).
" The compression of space in the confined frame of a train window, juxtaposed with the slow, gradual nature of the journey, allowed me to discover and document the nation, capturing in a singular way the immediacy of the present and the continuity of time travel."
SCROLLING SCENERY
Zones urbaines et industrielles, étendues de terres agricoles, silos, cimetières, déserts rocailleux, rivières, animaux, routes perpendiculaires… Le résultat est prodigieux.
La photographe n’hésite d’ailleurs pas à inviter l’humour dans le champ (des campeuses exhibent leur séant en voyant passer le train depuis les plages fluviales de l’Utah), ni à glisser subrepticement du surréalisme dans le panorama (les barreaux d’une échelle donnent l’impression « de pouvoir gravir la montagne en quelques pas seulement »), ni bien sûr à faire place à « la quintessence de l’Amérique suburbaine ». À l’exemple de cette « maison lambrissée de bois, où un drapeau américain pend, un propriétaire tond sa pelouse, une petite voiture d’enfant traîne sur le porche et un petit panneau indique “You are sunshine” ».
Katie Edwards then distances herself from her subject and examines the whole through panoramas of images. A single one encompasses her entire rail adventure, telling a beautiful story of time and space, movement and moment. "If this mosaic of travel were a page in a book, then the individual windows of the train would be the words that form sentences, then paragraphs."
" KATIE EDWARDS - PORTRAIT OF AMERICA"
THE OBSERVATORY PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY
64 MARCHMONT STREET, LONDON (ENGLAND)
UNTIL JANUARY 25, 2025
THEOBSERVATORY.ORG
KDEDWARDS.COM
