Bite! magazine » A Longstanding Traveler, Wanderer And Seeker

This Train Is Bound For Glory, by Justine Kurland  (February 18, 2010)

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Curator Statement by Michael Itkoff
Justine Kurland’s photographs hold a special place in my heart. Long have I wanted to ride freight trains around the country—the way my mother did—and these images satisfy a sort of wander-lust. Kurland’s portfolio is the result of months of living and traveling with her small boy, Casper. The characters she meets and photographs are no more permanent fixtures in the immense landscape than the trains hurtling through it. The intimacy of family is extended to these lonesome wanderers who share a love of the land and freedom. Views for this post have not been counted.

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Artist Testimonial

In this series, photographed over two years of travel, Justine Kurland focuses on the distinct, nomadic subculture of the hobo. Her images of trains, train-hoppers, and the American West allude to a hobo mythology developed in folk songs and literature. Kurland's method combines a documentary process with romantic idealism, giving her images a naturalism inflected by utopian fantasy.

Kurland's work draws upon the nineteenth-century landscape tradition of depicting a perfect place. Her photographs are narratives gleaned from America's dream of itself: a collective identity based on a firm faith in manifest destiny. These images are portals into the not-quite-real, not-quite-fictional realm of the American frontier. Kurland is a longstanding traveler, wanderer, and seeker in her own right, whose itinerant lifestyle intersects with and informs her work.


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