Maureen Oubre, St. Gabriel, Louisiana 27 - 2000

Deborah Luster made this tintype photograph, Maureen Oubre, in St. Gabriel, Louisiana. The colours are simple, almost monochromatic, but those aged, yellowed whites really gleam against the dark. It’s a small, intimate thing, isn't it? A modest rectangle. But look how the artist has played with light and shadow across Maureen Oubre’s face. The tonal range is compressed, flattened, but there is also a very shallow depth of field that throws the background out of focus. I love how the darkness bleeds into the contours of Oubre’s head, making her seem almost translucent, spectral. For me, this photograph recalls the work of Diane Arbus, who also stared unflinchingly at the fringes of society. Both artists have the ability to find a strange kind of beauty in unexpected places, to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary. It reminds me that art is, above all, a conversation.