Artist Profile: Natalie Slater

John Brown University photography student Natalie Slater held her senior show this evening at the Sager Creek Arts Center. I generally don’t talk about photography here — it doesn’t fall into my definition of tactile art — but her show is worthy of a blurb. My scrappy photos here were taken with my cameraphone.

All of her photographs in this collection were taken at night and printed on metallic paper. (This is only my second exposure to metallic paper, the first being Tuesday night at the JBU gallery which featured student’s work while touring Spain.) Both of these facts in and of themselves present the opportunity for very interesting works. What sets her work apart, however, is some very nice composition and a sense that she pays good attention to details in the frame. A few of the pictures really caught my attention, including the one in the foreground of the above snapshot, taken in a railyard.

It’s difficult to describe the visual power of her works with words. More than most photographers, she gives you the feeling of actually being in a place, something I value in a photograph. This seems to be a result of how she frames the objects in combination with her use of the metallic paper, which adds depth to the image.

Neal Holland, her professor, told me the images were all taken with a digital camera. I didn’t get to talk much with Natalie; we were kicked out of the upstairs gallery before a play began in the adjacent theater. I would have liked to walk through the show again.