selections from

Mystical Highway

From downtown Memphis turn south onto the mystical highway which threads through the land

of the disorienting drama of rain—deliverer of food, flood, and faith

of the mesmerizing music speaking to the very soul of all humankind

of the powerful symbols that weave through the stories—disappearing, reappearing.

This group of photographs is my vision of this small, mystical land called the delta.

J.U.

The “mystical highway” of Umbreit’s current efforts is not only the roads that she drives on through Memphis and the Mississippi Delta… but the mighty river whose devastating flood last year she places in the background of most of these untitled prints, and, finally, the transcendent highway of herself and her imagination.

While many of the scenes Umbreit records are familiar to anyone who grew up in the South or traveled its back roads… the juxtaposition, that is, the double exposure, of this material, presented almost unfailingly in dream-like hues, with that constant presence of prevailing flood waters produces a feeling of insecurity and attenuation. It’s as if the pieces were warnings to us that great shifting uncontrollable forces are at play, waiting for our psychological and material defenses to crumble.

Fredric Koeppel
Commercial Appeal, 2012