Natalie Jackson is a photographer currently living in Peoria, Illinois. Her love of jazz and portraits frequently collide as she creates fluid bodies with rhythmic flow and movement. Her Straight, No Chaser, body of work features jazz musicians created as if she’s improvising music. Other figures, such as those depicted in And Still I Rise, are stoic beauties drawing you into their pain and triumph. She is a medical photographer, which helped hone her skill for attention to detail.
Being an ArtPop Street Gallery winner, Class of 2019, brought local and national attention to this artist. She’s a member of the Illinois Art League, Central Illinois Arts Organization, and Peoria Camera Club. She sits on the Board of Directors at the Contemporary Art Center of Peoria, which is a frequently visited and highly active community arts center. Her studio, Natalie Jackson Photography, is also located there.
Natalie began taking photography classes at Gwinnett Technical College, Lawrenceville, Georgia in 1996. She has exhibited at several galleries throughout the Midwest including Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, placing 2nd in ___ exhibit, won the Award of Excellence at the Peoria Art Guild Riverfront Fine Art Festival 2018, and awarded First Place at Arts in Central Park Fine Art Festival, Decatur, Illinois 2019.
Natalie’s most notable body of work, Crowns of Empowerment, unveiled in 2017, depicts strong Black women as magazine models while referencing the Civil Rights movement. It demonstrates that art is a powerful tool as it pulls you into the canvases to feel the emotion of her beautiful and prideful characters as they relay history.
