Skip to main content

Info

Artist Statement

Making art, for me, is a way of life – a way of connecting with my senses, connecting with others and making sense of my experience. I listen with my eyes and make tangible the act of looking, touching and bearing witness to what I perceive. Simply calling attention to what is revealed through the interaction of light and form has the potential to transform perception, just as focused attention has the potential to transform thought. Over time, images, words, sounds and artifacts from daily life are reworked in my camera and studio. The resulting artwork is a celebration of the act of looking and wondering about what is revealed.” — 2025

View Full Artist Statement

About

Artist-photographer Linda Cummings (b. Valley Forge, PA) studied fine arts at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and Rutgers University. She is a pioneer in the development of photography-based, mixed-media art. Cummings is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Bronx Museum of Art, Yaddo Artist Colony, the Vermont Studio Center and the New Jersey Printmaking Council. Her work has been featured in leading fine art publications such as BLIND SPOT magazine, Graver La Lumiere exhibition catalogue, and the “Director’s Cut” of APERTURE. Cummings’ work is included in many private and museum collections, including the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian, Washington, DC; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY; Lehigh University Art Gallery, Bethlehem, PA; Muskarell Museum, Williamsburg, VA; NYU/Langone, New York, NY; New York Health and Hospitals Corporation, New York, NY; Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, CT; Museo Nazionale della Fotographia de Brescia, Brescia, Italy; and Musee Jenisch, Vevey, Switzerland. Since 1996, she has taught at the International Center of Photography in New York City. Cummings lives and works in New York City and Branford, Connecticut.

View Full CV

  • Substance of Light

  • Revisiting South Bethlehem

  • LC Exhibitions 2015 Addison Ripley

    Natural Allusions

  • Surface Notes

  • Touching the Farm River

  • Waterlines

  • Stirring the Waters

Exhibitions

Slippages, 2023 | 89 Greene at signs and symbols | New York, NY

Vision/Sound: Allentown’s ’80s Arts Scene Revisited, 2017 | Martin Art Gallery, Baker Center Arts, Muhlenberg College | Allentown, PA

Substance of Light, 2017 | Farm River Studio | Branford, CT

Revisiting South Bethlehem, 2016 | Lehigh University Art Gallery | Lehigh, PA

Natural Allusions, 2015 | Addison/Ripley Fine Art | Washington, D.C.

Surface Notes, 2014 | New Arts Program | Kutztown, PA

Touching the Farm River, 2014 | Smilow Hospital | New Haven, CT

Waterlines, 2013 dm|contemporary | New York, NY

Stirring the Waters, 2010 | dm|contemporary | New York, NY

—

Public / Private Art Commissions

Sunrise Ark Doors, 2022 | Photographic Glass, Temple Beth Tikvah, Madison, CT Radiant Nature Lighting, Ceiling Art Installation, Smilow Cancer Hospital of Yale New Haven, New Haven, CT

Flourishing I-VI, 2021 | Photographic Mural, Penn State Hampden Hospital, Harrisburgh, PA

Touching the Farm River, 2014 – 2016 | AV and Photographic Installation, Smilow Cancer Hospital of Yale New Haven, New Haven, CT

—

For Complete List of Exhibitions & Commissions View Full CV

  • Casting Off: Linda Cummings’s Slippages
    by Nancy Princenthal

  • Stirring the Waters, Exhibition Catalogue

  • Ovulator Series, Blind Spot #15

  • In the Name of the Daughter, Limited Edition

  • Graver la Lumiere, Exhibition Catalogue

  • Ovulator Series, Baseball Cards

  • Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis

  • Making Sense: Beauty, Creativity and Healing

Publications

Slippages: Photographs by Linda Cummings, edited by Kathy Battista, introduction by Linda Cummings, texts by Nancy Princenthal, Kathy Battista, Elise Morrison and Emna Zghal; Skira, 2025.

Casting Off: Linda Cummings’s Slippages, Nancy Princenthal. 2020

Stirring the Waters, Exhibition Catalogue. dm|contemporary, New York, NY. 2010

“Ovulator Series”, Blindspot, Issue #15. 2000

“In the Name of the Daughter”, Limited Edition (Photogravure). Smithsonian American Art Museum,Washington, D.C. 1997

Graver la Lumiere, Exhibition Catalogue. Musee Jenisch, Vevey, Switzerland. 2003

“Ovulator Series”, Limited Edition (Baseball Cards). The Whitney Museum of American Art (ISP), New York, NY. 1997

“Making Waves”, Linda Cummings. Art, Creativity and Psychoanalysis, ed. George Hagman. 2017

“Beauty, Longing, and Fear”, Linda Cummings/Katy Martin. Making Sense: Beauty, Creativity and Healing, ed. Bandy Lee, Nancy Olson, Thomas P. Duffy. 2014

Artist to Watch - Mercer Contemporary

“Artist to Watch”, Mercer Contemporary. 2023

Conversations

“Artist to Watch”, Nicole Bray & Linda Cummings. Mercer Contemporary. 2023

“Dose of Nature”, Linda Cummings. Yale University Auxiliary, Branford, CT. 2019

“ReVisiting Slippages”, Kathy Battista (Curator) & Linda Cummings. Artedolia Online Art Journal. 2019

“Hysterical Gestures” Revisiting South Bethlehem Exhibition Interview, Ricardo Viera (Curator) & Linda Cummings. Lehigh University Art Gallery, Bethlehem, PA. 2016

“Waterlines”, Exhibition Artist Talk, Linda Cummings. d|m Contemporary, New York, NY. 2013

“Beauty, Longing and Fear”, Making Sense Symposium, Linda Cummings & Katy Martin. Yale University, New Haven, CT. 2011

Teaching

Linda Cummings has been teaching at the International Center of Photography for over twenty years, in photographic processes, darkroom techniques and sustaining a daily creative practice. Linda began her career as an industrial photographer for Mack Trucks in Allentown, PA. before moving to New York City to concentrate on fine art, teaching and art activism. She studied fine arts at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and Rutgers University.

Links

Find more information about my exhibitions, publications and creative process here. Simply calling attention to the impressions of wind, water or light on the surface of things has the potential to transform one’s way of relating to what is perceived. Over time, what is gathered from my daily experience and perceptions is reworked in the artwork.