Biography: A Desolate Sublimity: Landscape As Social Commentary

In a provocative way, Hilton Plummer has dealt with many issues in his career as an artist. These issues translated into human struggles include the domestic, economical, sociopolitical and ecological concerns of the artist. His paintings, especially his landscapes, have reflected his willingness to explore and synthesize various materials in a way that has provoked a lingering consciousness of the issues raised. The visual experience of the subject matter is transformed into a symbolic expression of human feelings, as form becomes icon in the lingering contemplation of the viewer.

In the mid-80's, the artist's works, mostly figurative, dealt with domestic and economical struggles of his people. These works, mostly acrylic paintings of black women, expressed his awareness of women who were devoted to child rearing and domestic work in his culture.

The native mother's love and devotion to her infant are reflected, for example, in the artist's painting, A Mother's Love.

A Mother's Love

In this painting, a mother is depicted as a tender, caring person of humble beginnings. There is a sense of holiness in the elements of the picture that composed the visual experience. At first, it seems like an ordinary woman is depicted holding her baby in her arms and supported on her crossed knee while sitting on the side of an overturned water-drum. Her posture may appear precarious due to the uncertain mobility of the object she is sitting on. In the second look she appears convincingly as a good mother if not a holy one, one that would not endanger the life of her newborn. The pendant cross, she wears around her neck, is the sign of her Christian faith much like the halos about the heads of the native mother and child in Gauguin's painting, La Orana Maria. Although both artists' subject matter was motivated through their contemplation of the tropics.

Caribbean Woman

Plummer has chosen to focus less on the adoration and devotion of the holy family in natural paradise. Rather, he has directed our attention to the economical struggle of the mother in her lowly dwelling; suggested by the shanty fence and her roller-coaster position alluded to in the overturned water drum that bears her pose.

The domestic struggle of people from the artist's heritage may also be perceived in his painting, Caribbean Woman. In this painting, a robust, hardworking, black woman sits on a bench clinching a broom aggressively as though her livelihood depended on it. Her solemn face and tensed posture reflect her determination to remain focus on her chore or job that is necessary for her to make a living.

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