Justin Kimball: Who By Fire

Justin Kimball’s Who By Fire considers contemporary American life as it relates to a complex history of economic, religious, and political environments. Kimball's work wrestles with the complications of the current moment while trying to imagine the promise of a future that is unknown and tenuous. Unflinching photographs of people in neighborhoods, streets, and yards document moments where the burden of the present day visibly presses in upon bodies and physical surroundings, while also conveying the resilience and hope maintained under that weight. The people in these pictures are further contextualized by photographs that point to the visual markers of humanity in the landscape, either unintended or by design: a wall painting of a sun dial, a rising angel nailed to the side of a barn, a woman asleep on a blanket paired with a tree set on fire.

Justin Kimball’s photographs are about humanity, memory, loss, and hope. They carry a specifically American subtext and consider the historical, social, and political times through the landscapes, homes, and people who live there. He is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and Aaron Siskind Fellowship, among others. His work is held in over thirty public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, J. Paul Getty Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Library of Congress, High Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the National Gallery of Art. Kimball is the author of the monographs Where We Find Ourselves (Center for American Places, 2006), Pieces of String (Radius Books, 2012), and Elegy (Radius Books, 2016). He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he is the Conway Professor in New Media at Amherst College.