James Welling is an American artist based in Los Angeles whose diverse body of work has influenced a generation of artists and photographers. Making both representational and abstract images, Welling brings an experimental sensibility to photography. Even the simplest of subjects, whether it be aluminum foil or Jell-O cubes, are crafted into an intricate display of sensory and imagination.

In 2006, Welling began taking photographs of Philip Johnson’s Glass House. The result was scores of intensely colorful digital ink-jet prints. In an effort to explore the way in which the human brain processes color, Jim makes multiple exposures using colored filters, clear glass, and fogged plastic to create a vibrant and textural photographic experience. Additionally, he uses diffraction filters in order to break the light into spectrums so that he can photograph what our eyes cannot see on their own.

His work has been in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including a mid-career retrospective at the Cincinnati Art Museum which traveled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and the Fotomuseum in Winterthur. His work was exhibited in documenta IX, the 2008 Whitney Biennial, the 2009 exhibition The Pictures Generation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in 2014, What Is a Photograph? at the International Center of Photography. His work is in the collections of major museums such as Centre Georges Pompidou, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. His books include The Mind on Fire (2014), Monograph (2013), Glass House (2010), and Flowers (2007). Welling teaches in the art department at UCLA and was a visiting professor at Princeton University in 2012. He is represented by David Zwirner, New York/London, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and Peter Freeman, Paris.

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Since 1985, the International Center of Photography has recognized outstanding achievements in photography with its prestigious Infinity Awards. The awards ceremony is also ICP’s primary fundraising benefit, with its revenues assisting the center's various programs.

Harbers Studios commissioned MediaStorm, on behalf of ICP, to create a short film about each of the recipients to screen at the awards ceremony and to later remain online. The films serve as an introduction of the recipients to the audience as well as a showcase of their work, highlighting the motivations for honoring them with Infinity Awards.

James Welling has been taking photographs for over 40 years and has a vast archive of abstract and representational work. Much of his early work was black and white, but his most recent work is vibrantly colorful. We had to find a balance between these two chapters of his career.

We structured his interview so that it would take the viewer on the same journey he went on as he moved from watercolor, to black and white abstract photography, to his color photograms and abstract photographs.

MediaStorm interviewed the recipients and gathered images to create stories about each of their careers. The resulting films serve individually as biographical glimpses into the recipients’ work and collectively as a portrait of some of the important contributors to photography today.

This film was a collaboration with Harbers Studio and the International Center of Photography.

Harbers Studios turbocharges the efforts of charitable entrepreneurs by helping them tell their stories. Our goal is to help them articulate and share the value of the work they do so they can inspire others to help them do it. Working with some of the best filmmaking talent in the world, we create compelling visual narratives that enhance the endeavors of organizations working to make the world a better place.

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is the world’s leading institution dedicated to the practice and understanding of photography and the reproduced image in all its forms. Through our exhibitions, educational programs, and community outreach, we offer an open forum for dialogue about the role images play in our culture. Since our founding, we have presented more than 500 exhibitions and offered thousands of classes, providing instruction at every level. ICP is a center where photographers and artists, students and scholars can create and interpret the world of the image within our comprehensive educational facilities and archive.