Public Art > Rooms: Gladstone House (#407)

Natalie Hunter. Breath taken, and released. 2018. Archival pigment print on baryta paper mounted to aluminum composite. 36” x 24”.

Natalie Hunter. I remember the light then. 2020. Archival pigment print on backlit film, reflective colour film, custom bracket, light.

Natalie Hunter. I remember the light there. 2020. Archival pigment print on backlit film, reflective colour film, custom bracket, light. 22” x 60”.


Using light as a material in her photo-based sculptures and installations, Natalie Hunter explores relationships between photographic time, memory, the senses, motion, and light. In I remember the light then, I remember the light there (2020), Hunter photographed the sun as it moved across the sky on the shortest day of the year. Embracing an experimental use of photography materials and camera function, she uses colour filters to distinguish layered moments in time, and prints on transparent and translucent films that she hangs, ripples, and drapes to interact with architectural and ambient characteristics of the space. In Breath taken, and released (2018), Hunter explores bodily memory by matching her camera exposure to the timing of her breath - two seconds inhale, 3 seconds exhale - while passing colour filters over it’s aperture. The resulting image is a soft, imperfect, experimental, and ethereal multiple exposure that contains mirror imagery of her surroundings in addition to what she’s looking at with a lens.

Natalie Hunter holds an MFA from the University of Waterloo, and has shown her work in numerous exhibitions and public presentations including the Hamilton Supercrawl; the Art Gallery of Hamilton; University of Waterloo Art Gallery; Rodman Hall Arts Centre; Smokestack Gallery; Centre 3 for artistic + social practice; Museum London; Latcham Art Centre; Art Gallery of Windsor; and Factory Media Centre among others. She is the recipient of several awards from Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts and in addition to her artistic practice is also a sessional instructor at the University of Waterloo. Natalie Hunter is from Hamilton, Ontario, where she lives and works.