Robert Welsh

Robert Welsh

Robert Welsh's striking black and white and lush color photographs will be on display in the upstairs photography gallery now through May. "Grandma's China" is an impressive body of work from Welsh's travels to China and his personal family experiences in Chinatown, San Francisco. This exhibit will be a starting point for Welsh's exploration of Chinatown, New York.

Having been exposed through my wife and her family to Chinese culture and tradition as they have been translated in the United States, I looked forward to being part of their sojourn to China.

These photographs are my response to the tenderness and beauty I saw there in people’s everyday lives. I experienced a land filled with ancient traditions yet struggling to become modern. Though China was on its way to becoming modern, progress seemed to move slowly; as did the pace of daily life. It seemed that one could bear witness to the old becoming the new.

I spent 12 days exploring the streets of my father-in-law’s village, Zhongshan. He immigrated to America when he was eighteen. We found his boyhood home with many of the family’s relics still intact. It surprised me that, though the house had been empty for many years, no one had touched the family’s possessions. I could hear the pride in my father-in-law’s voice as he showed me the house in which he grew up. The realization that one could leave property far behind, trusting that no one would disturb it, was profound for me.

Robert Welsh, March 2002