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James Rosenquist has embraced printmaking as a vital creative form, developing an important body of work that explores and explodes traditional boundaries of aesthetic and technique. Dating from 1971, Graphicstudio has published over thirty etchings, lithographs, silkscreens, mixed-media prints, and multiples in collaboration with Rosenquist.
In Rails, Rosenquist used the image of a lightning bolt to slice the composition boldly in half, then created a balance that depends not on exact symmetry, but on the delicate counterbalancing of the visual force of the imagery on either side. The composition has a light left and dark right side that, given Rosenquist’s study of Eastern philosophy, is intriguingly analogous to the Chinese symbol for yin and yang. The artist balances the visual interest inherent in the subtle textures of the railroad track and its gravel bed (for which visual identification comes slowly) against the easily recognizable images of sunglasses and rocking horse. The left side of the composition is given additional visual weight by the insertion of the artist’s name, written in Chinese characters, in blue, the only color among the neutral tones of black, white, and silver.
Implied movement is integral to Rails, the railroad track, alludes to “locomotion,” while the split of the lightning bolt, the rocking of the winged horse, and the pair of sunglasses – whose rotation on an axis is suggested by the large arrow indicating movement around the central snapline – are all additional metaphors for motion and energy. (Fine, Ruth E., Corlett, Mary Lee, Graphicstudio Contemporary Art from the Collaborative Workshop at the University of South Florida, National Gallery of Art, 1991.)
