MEGALITH-STILL

Stanley & Barker
Megalith-still is a meditation on the sublime of the untamed American landscape.

Over the course of multiple summers in the late 1990s to early 2000s, Plumb travelled from her home in San Francisco, to Kings Canyon, a wilderness where she communed with a band of horses. She would come to produce a series of portraits of the herd, imbued with a deep tenderness, and powerful physic weight.

“The horses sleep lying down, legs twitching, mouths wrapped around blades of grass. The flies are attracted to their moist, flickering eyes. I’m as close as I can focus, examining their faces, tails, hooves and bellies, bewitched by the sensuality of horse and place.

“I am in a meadow high in the Sierra Nevada. Channels of the San Joaquin River braid through the thick, lush grass. I take off my shoes and socks, roll up my pants and wade through the shallow water to where the horses are now eating. They trace a pattern, mysterious to me, around and around the meadow, eating, drinking, and sleeping.

“Late in the afternoon, the horses abruptly leave the meadow in a single line. I race after them through a swamp of thick mud and dead trees and branches which scratch my arms. They trot and canter, moving faster than they’ve moved all day. I can’t catch up to them. When I reach the edge of the main riverbank, I see the last of the horses cautiously step into the deep, swift moving water, and slowly float to the other side.” - Mimi Plumb