Illuminations: Natalie Hunter and John Storey
Illuminations
Natalie Hunter and John Storey
September 15th - November 5th 2026
The Cotton Factory
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Illuminations brings together the work of Natalie Hunter and John Storey in an exhibition of sculpture and photography that contemplates a shared interest in the material properties of glass while celebrating colour, light, and form. Each artist approaches the potential of glass as a material from their unique respective disciplines while creating a space for craft and contemporary art to co-exist in meaningful dialogue. From an engagement with light, time, and the optics of photography, to a committed focus on heritage restoration, design, pattern, and lead work, Illuminations captures the poetic relationship these artists have created through thoughtful explorations and playful reimagining of John Storey’s vast glass library.
Artist Biographies
Natalie Hunter is an artist and educator born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. Over the past fourteen years she has worked across photography, installation, sculpture, and the moving image, and is mostly known for her multilayered and light filled photo-based installations on transparent film. In her work she engages with the poetics of time, memory, temporality, and the senses - with an emphasis on embodied experience, perception, materiality, and personal memory. Natalie Hunter is the recipient of many Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation Grants, and Ontario Arts Council Visual Artists Creation Project Grants and has shown her work in public art galleries and artist-run-centres across Canada. She holds an MFA from the University of Waterloo where she is also a sessional instructor and an inaugural recipient of the Liu Shiming Distinguished Educator Award (2025).
natalie-hunter.com
John Storey is a heritage stained glass window restorer from Hamilton, Ontario with over forty years of experience. His restored stained glass windows are located in many of Hamilton’s historic domestic buildings in Hamilton and the greater Southern Ontario Region. Over the past four decades he has shown his work across Ontario, including at the Burlington Art Gallery, the Glenhyrst Gallery of Brant, and more recently the 2026 Ontario Heritage Conference held at The Cotton Factory. John Storey remains committed to the time honoured traditions of leaded stained glass restoration using period materials, and heritage glass while conversing with the history of Hamilton’s architecture.
The artists acknowledge the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, and Smokestack Digital.