Award-winning Winston-Salem photographer Carl Galie’s Lost on the Road to Oblivion: The Vanishing Beauty of Coal Country is a project in which Galie immersed himself in order to reclaim his sense of home and search for the truth embodied in that yearning. His work takes the viewer on a journey through the Southern Appalachians while documenting the practice of mountaintop removal, as well as its collateral fallout, in a series of images depicting an endangered natural environment. Galie’s photographs pose the question: ‘Should years of environmental regulations be overruled in an attempt to stimulate the economy by allowing mountaintop removal to continue?’
This exhibition is in collaboration with North Carolina Poet Laureate and Appalachian State University English Professor Joseph Bathanti. Bathanti has responded to Galie’s photographs with a suite of poems that will also be displayed during the exhibition.
About the artist
Carl Galie
Carl Galie is a North Carolina photographer who has devoted his work to conservation issues for the last 18 years. Galie’s photographs of the Roanoke River basin have helped protect and preserve that region since 1995 when he received an Emerging Artist Grant from the Winston-Salem, Forsyth County Arts Council and the North Carolina Arts Council to photograph the Roanoke River Basin for the purpose of publishing the book Vision Quest, A Visual Journey Through North Carolina’s Lower Roanoke River Basin, published by Red Maple Press. An exhibition of prints from the book opened in Winston-Salem at the Salem College Fine Art Center Gallery in August 1999. The traveling exhibition of prints from the book was shown in a number of colleges and private galleries across North Carolina until it was donated to The Nature Conservancy in 2002. Galie’s photography of the Roanoke River Basin has been used in publications produced by The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife In North Carolina, Orion Afield magazine, the North Carolina Aquarium, Roanoke Canal Museum, Roanoke River Partners, The Southern Environmental Law Center, and by The National Park Service. In 2006 Our State magazine featured his photography of the Roanoke River Basin in their April issue when his exhibition Back To The River was on display at a number of galleries throughout North Carolina.
In 2007 Galie was awarded a Regional Artist grant from the North Carolina Arts Council for his second book project 175 Paces, which was released November 1, 2008 along with an exhibition of prints from that monograph.
In 2009 Galie began working with Appalachian Voices and The National Committee for the New River while documenting the vanishing beauty of coal country, focusing his attention on the devastating affect mountaintop removal of coal is having on our nation’s water resources. He was awarded the first Art For Conservation Grant in August 2010 for his project Lost on the Road to Oblivion, The Vanishing Beauty of Coal Country.
Joseph Bathanti
Joseph Bathanti was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. He came to North Carolina as a VISTA Volunteer in 1976 to work with prison inmates. Bathanti is the author of four books of poetry: Communion Partners; Anson County; The Feast of All Saints; and This Metal, which was nominated for The National Book Award. His first novel, East Liberty, winner of the Carolina Novel Award, was published in 2001. His latest novel, Coventry, won the 2006 Novello Literary Award. They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolina’s Visiting Artists, 1971-1995, his book of nonfiction, was published in early 2007. Most recently, his collection of short stories, The High Heart, winner of the 2006 Spokane Prize, was published by Eastern Washington University Press in 2007. He is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council; The Samuel Talmadge Ragan Award, presented annually for outstanding contributions to the Fine Arts of North Carolina over an extended period; the Linda Flowers Prize; the Sherwood Anderson Award, the 2007 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Prize; and others. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. On August 30, 2012, Bathanti was named Poet Laureate of North Carolina.