Rail (Consumption Hollow), charcoal on paper

Craig Brumwell is a Vancouver-based artist who received his BFA from Emily Carr University. His mixed-media installation, Rail, looks exploring objects - in this case, railroads, with particular interest in the way they, and other objects like them, are becoming obsolete. Craig has done a series of charcoal drawings of railroad tracks accompanied by a sculptural installation of several disconnected track rails, and a video which depicts the artist filing rust off of one of the rails destined for the sculpture.

Rail Installation, hand-filed rail segments and filings

I find it interesting - and haunting, in a way - that in all of these different approaches, the object – the rail – seems curiously removed from its expected purpose. Each drawing focuses on an individual rail, as opposed to an entire train track. In showing these rails like individual pieces of a larger whole, Craig makes the objects seem lonely, and perhaps almost human in a way.