I’ve always been drawn to light, shadow, and those quiet moments where time seems to pause.
Nature has been my guide, its textures, colors, and rhythms offering grounding and renewal. Over the years, I began bringing my camera on my nature walks, blending my background in portrait photography with the study of plants, trees, and botanical forms. Much like my portrait work, it was always the tiny details of nature, observed up close, that captured my attention. I wasn’t even fully aware that I was quietly shaping a visual language of my own, until destiny stepped in and I started to share my work. So what began as a personal practice eventually blossomed into a full-time fine art journey.
Today, my work moves photography beyond the flat image into immersive, tactile forms. My shadowboxes invite viewers to experience light and shadow as living elements, shifting with perspective and the changing light of the day. I often manipulate tonal qualities of the ink on acrylic glass to add another dimensional layer. With the ink on metal works, the warm reflective surface interacts with light to create depth, presence, and a quiet joy.
The Mystical Series emerged during a period of personal and artistic rediscovery. I use botanical source material, specifically flowers and trees, to create many intricate, evolving patterns reminiscent of a kaleidoscope. To me these patterns are representative of the complexity of our human experience and the interconnectedness of all living things. Through complex lenticular printing methods, these works shift and transform as the viewer moves, offering moments of wonder, reflection, and connection. My lenticular textural pieces explore similar patterns while aiming to emphasize time as both a value and an experience.
Across all my work, I aim to expand the boundaries of photography, combining process and material to challenge expectations of the medium as purely flat or fixed. At the heart of everything I create is the hope that these works offer pause, invite curiosity, and bring a touch of nature’s beauty and serenity into everyday life.
Arlene Byster is a contemporary artist based in Highland Park, Illinois. She holds a B.S. degree from Arizona State University and pursued further studies in art and photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia College Chicago. She also studied figure drawing and watercolor at the renowned Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts.