St. Gabriel, Louisiana 30 - 1999

Deborah Luster made this tintype, St. Gabriel, Louisiana. There's a particular glow, a quality that comes from the photographic process and the colors she's chosen. It reminds me of a drawing – how the light falls on a form, how the figure emerges from the dark background. What strikes me most is the texture and the surface. It's not just about what's depicted, but the way the light plays across the metallic plate. You can almost feel the coolness of the metal, and see the imperfections that give it a unique character. The image seems to hover somewhere between a representation and an object in itself. This piece reminds me of the quiet, powerful portraits by Alice Neel. Both artists have a way of capturing something essential about their subjects, a kind of raw honesty. But where Neel used paint, Luster uses light and chemistry. It's a fascinating conversation across different mediums, about how we see and remember each other.