Short Track:
Photographs from the Asphalt Oval
By Clifton Dowell
December 7, 2007–March 9, 2008
University Gallery
This series of photographic prints documents the visual character of Wake County Speedway, a non-sanctioned, “outlaw” track where drivers (some too young to get a driver’s license) spend summer nights racing cars that are put together and kept rolling by friends and family. In business for nearly fifty years, the racetrack is a social microcosm where generations of families come together to make their own fun. The racing is close, loud, and contentiousa non-corporate, community-based entertainment in the vernacular of the American South.
Clifton Dowell became seriously interested in photography seven years ago when a box of black-and-white negatives from the 1940s was passed down to him. He is a member of Antfarm Studios, an artists’ collective in Raleigh, and is currently working on a project in that city’s historic Depot District with the help and fiscal sponsorship of the Southern Documentary Fund. He is employed as the general manager of the News & Observer’s Insider State Government News Service.
banner image:
Partial view of the Lyndhurst Gallery, one of four exhibition spaces
at CDS. Photograph by Christoper Sims.
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