Mimi Plumb (b. 1953) began making photographs in the 1970s, as a teenager living in the San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek. It was the start of a period of rapid land development and political and economic instability in the USA, shaped by growing environmental concerns, the AIDS epidemic, violent global conflicts and the looming threat of nuclear war. This atmosphere of unease permeates the 107 black-and-white images in Blazing Light, the artist’s first solo US museum exhibition. It opens on 31 October at the Norton Museum of Art, Florida’s largest art institution, alongside The Whole World is a Mystery, a concurrent show of dreamlike paintings by fellow American artist Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977).
Blazing Light brings together four of Plumb’s major bodies of work: The White Sky, Landfall, The Golden City and The Reservoir. Her subjects include friends and strangers alike, among them people living on the margins of society. Across these images, Plumb captures a pervasive sense of alienation between people and their environments, both built and natural. Some photographs convey domestic tension: in one, a girl in a polka dot dress sits with her head in her hands. Elsewhere, crowds watch smoke billow from a fire across the street, whilst a white picket fence encloses an empty space. Other images point to industrial decline, from a group of boys sitting among a pile of tyres to an ageing Texaco sign looming over the shallows of the Salton Sea. Water feels like a constant presence, with trees springing up from the waves – a looming reminder of climate breakdown. Throughout, the photographs suggest wider narratives beyond the frame.
“Since the 1970s, Plumb has been a keen observer of her surroundings, recording the subtle tensions and psychological undercurrents that shape everyday encounters with the landscape and built environment,” says Lauren Richman, Ph.D., who is the Norton’s William and Sarah Ross Soter Senior Curator of Photography. “Blazing Light invites viewers into a space where reality feels at once intimate and unfamiliar, shaped as much by our inner states as by the shifting environmental and social pressures of our time.” In this way, Plumb finds parallels with other creatives working today, such as the psychologically charged, monochrome visions of Polish visual artist Joanna Piotrowska, who also probes human relationships.
Plumb’s powerful display, which examines the anxieties of American life in the waning years of the Cold War and its aftermath, is complemented by Abercrombie’s work in The Whole World is a Mystery. Throughout her lifetime, she grappled with similar feelings of isolation, which found expression in her paintings. Cats, owls, snails, doors, moons, barren trees, seashells, forking paths and masked figures populate her enigmatic compositions. Together, the two exhibitions underscore the Norton’s role as a leading platform for women artists of the 20th and 21st centuries whose work has historically been underrecognised – practitioners “who have challenged the way we perceive and understand ourselves and the world around us,” explains Ghislain d’Humières, the Norton’s Kenneth C. Griffin Director and CEO. Despite working in different mediums and generations, Plumb and Abercrombie share an interest in uncertainty and the complexities of human experience. These two shows offer poetic, emotionally complex visions of life and landscape across the 20th century, making for compelling viewing this season.
Blazing Light: Photographs by Mimi Plumb is at Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach.
31 October – 14 March.
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953) Afloat, 2021 – 2025 Pigmented inkjet print Framed: 29 1/4 x 35 1/4 in. (74.3 x 89.5 cm) High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Foundation © Mimi Plumb
2. Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953) Tree I, 2021 – 2025 Pigmented inkjet print Framed: 24 1/4 x 28 3/4 in. (61.6 x 73 cm) Courtesy of the artist © Mimi Plumb
3. Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953) White Fence, 1988 Gelatin silver print Framed: 24 1/4 x 28 3/4 in. (61.6 x 73 cm) Courtesy of the artist © Mimi Plumb
4. Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953) Salton Sea, 1984 Gelatin silver print Framed: 20 1/4 x 23 3/4 in. (51.4 x 60.3 cm) Courtesy of the artist © Mimi Plumb
