Freight Train Graffiti

Freight Train Graffiti – Pierre Quinn

Forwarded by PARK’s Art Curator Victoria Lessard

 While artist Pierre Quinn jokes that his first foray into art was “mostly just to avoid the boring subjects” in school, it was the combination of a university

printmaking course, the gift of a camera, and a fascination with trains that set him on the path to a serious pursuit of photography.

During his time in Quebec studying political theory at university, Quinn lived near a set of railroad tracks. Fascinated with the ever-changing landscape of the tracks, Quinn began following the names of graffiti artists that appeared on the cars.

While the debate surrounding the artistic merit of this controversial medium does not interestQuinn, what drew him to begin photographing freight train graffiti was the quality of the work being produced. Quinn explains, “[…] when trains started being painted there was a sort of hierarchy, painting trains was a privilege. The idea was that only established writers were hitting them, keeping it the highest quality pieces. It’s not really like that anymore, but there are a lot of good people going out of their way to keep those traditions.” The masters of graffiti could be found on the boxcars rolling by Quinn’s home. Another draw for Quinn is the continuously moving setting of, as the photographer describes it, “the world’s largest rolling ‘art’ gallery.” An apt description, Quinn’sphotographs capture the transient nature of this unique “gallery”. No day is the same – there are no openings, no publicity campaigns, or gift shops. The pieces travel around the country, and once you see it, you never know if you’ll ever see it in person again.

Each graffiti piece is juxtaposed with the nature of the canvas on which it is sprayed – the historic cars of the CN rail line. Each car is beaten and weathered, presumably having crossed Canada thousands of times over before being created into an audacious piece of artistic street culture. The ephemeral quality of graffiti writing is contemplated in these works. How many people have seen these pieces roll before their eyes? Do the artists themselves ever see their pieces again? Quinn acts as a documentarian, recording these art works before they disappear, as well as a thoughtful portraitist. Quinn is creating a portrayal of these artists – each name, an evolving exploration of a self-representation of the person. Is the goal to simply place your name on as many trains as possible? Or is the idea to create an artwork within your own name, the artist’s signature written large? In one work, “ICH.” is sprayed on a rusty red boxcar. Inside the three letters, the graffiti artist has created a dusty landscape with a subtle transitioning of each colour into the other, echoing and reflecting the landscape the art piece will travel over, and over, until it fades away and remains only in Quinn’s photograph.