Industrial Shore c. 1935 - 1943

Editor: So, this is Moses Oley’s "Industrial Shore," dating from the late 30s to early 40s. It's a drawing, a print really, rendered in graphite. It feels both realistic and… well, slightly ominous, wouldn’t you say? What strikes you most about this scene? Curator: Ominous is a good word for it! To me, the entire image vibrates with this hushed tension, doesn't it? The grays are almost a monochrome, lending the factory complex a somewhat foreboding presence. Think of Oley capturing this during the build up to the second world war, an industrialized society shifting into gear for… something big. And what's *that* something, simmering under the surface? Does the single boat floating serenely give you the impression that life, or a kind of freedom is juxtaposed against industrial life and labour? Editor: That’s an interesting point. I hadn’t connected it to the war. The boat now reads like a fragile hope against the… inevitability of industry and war. Curator: Exactly! What I find interesting is Oley using such a detailed style to also leave the work almost undone or unfulfilled. To me this creates a constant questioning of what will happen with these "still lives" of industry, caught just before a catastrophic shift into full war machinery. The realism in the precise lines gives it weight, but that dream-like, unreal quality holds us in limbo between reality and possibility. Editor: It's amazing how much history and emotion can be packed into what at first seems like just a simple cityscape drawing. I definitely see it differently now. Curator: That's the thing about art, isn’t it? A single image, a fleeting moment captured with the weight and burden of historical realities all at play. Art forever a conversation that we are allowed to step in and out of, across the ages.