Wales 15 1953

This is Wales 15, made by Robert Frank, and it's a gelatin silver print. It looks like a film strip – a kind of storyboard of stills. I wonder what Frank was looking for here. It’s as if he’s laying down evidence or clues. There is a sense of searching and wanting to grasp something just out of reach. He makes the images, and then he lays them out in a grid, searching for meaning within the composition. The red marker is like a painter making adjustments, trying to bring something out of the image – like the painting is shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. There's an ongoing conversation in the work of all artists, across time, with ideas inspiring one another’s creativity. Frank’s photographs feel like they are in conversation with Walker Evans’ project documenting the banality of everyday life. It’s painting, but with a camera.