Museum Natalie Nowotarski

In this piece, ‘Museum’, from Melbourne photographer Natalie Nowotarski, we see a snapshot into a photo journal exploring the photographer’s love of history, love of beauty and love of the arts; “I have a love of the old, the decayed and the weathered, what is beautiful, yet ugly, the dark and the light”. We see this guiding philosophy here where Natalie captures the theatrical interplay between the idealised classical form framed by the gritty sensory onslaught of a baroque setting, where the high-drama of cool gleaming light and intensely dark shadows plays out. This melodrama is further emphasised by the bust of the bearded aged Emperor Hadrian with his sombre expression sinking into blackness while flanking the focal point of the image, a clean-shaven naked youth, possibly Antinous, the epitome of the Hellenic ideal, in full light.

Having travelled extensively throughout Europe and Asia, and periodically residing in Florence, Natalie is captivated by the cultural legacy of everywhere she visits, finding inspiration equally in the humdrum of every-day ordinary life and in the high-art generated by these cultures over centuries.