The zigzag tracings of the palm leaves
recall photograms or the stylized manipulations of light in film noir (in which many of these trees once featured), while the inky gloss of the images simultaneously reflects viewers» gaze and sucks them into an interstellar vastness.
Seeing the totality of Welling's work, in a lucid installation by the architecture firm Johnston Marklee, clarifies connections such as those between the New Abstractions, (1998 - 2000), large
photograms of deep black bars on white paper,
recalling Franz Kline paintings, and the rigor of his straightforward pictures of modern architecture such as Maison de Verre (2009).