Ella Slomba: Art That Lingers
From unconventional photo shoots to bold creative experiments, the SUNY Purchase student is carving out her own artistic path, challenging expectations and finding new ways to see the world through her lens.
By Annelise Durkin
Memory does not always stay where we leave it. For photographer Ella Slomba, it can live in an old photograph, an everyday object, or a familiar place that no longer looks the way she remembers.
In her latest project, “Moving Pictures, Silent Films”, Slomba revisits the life of her father, who died three years ago. Using color 35-mm film, archival photographs, digital scans, and images of places from her childhood, she pieces together what remains. The project explores grief, loss, and the passage of time, transforming personal memories into something viewers can experience for themselves.
She explained that the project combines different forms of imagery to explore “his life, objects, what was left behind, revisiting places that we used to go to and seeing how they are now versus how they were in my childhood memory.” Slomba’s project examines how the past continues to influence the present, even when the people and moments she remembers are no longer physically there.
For Slomba, photography does more than documenting what exists; it is a way of making people feel something long after they have looked away.
“Oh my God. I hope that they feel haunted in the best way possible,” Slomba said. “My biggest hope, honestly, in life, is to be someone that is talked about in artistic spaces, where when you look at one of my images and you're face-to-face with it, it consumes you a little bit.”
Slomba, a photography and journalism double major at SUNY Purchase, explores identity, memory, and the experiences of women and queer communities through her work. Her interest in photography began with documentation, but it has developed into a more conceptual practice that allows her to construct images and challenge how people see themselves and others. “I think now what interests me about it is how I can frame and manipulate my subjects and my settings to create an image that I want you to see,” she said. Her photographs often turn the people she works with into characters, presenting them in ways that may feel unfamiliar even to the subjects themselves.
Sabrina Moore, a senior photography major and model, has experienced this firsthand. Moore said Slomba “always captures people in an interesting, poetic and almost cinematic nature that makes them seem different from the person they are on a consistent basis”. For Slomba, that transformation is part of the creative process. She wants to explore the possibilities of an image rather than simply reproduce what is already there.
“You don’t know if it’s going to be Ella asking you to be naked in a field or Ella climbing up in a tree to get the shot”. Moore said.
Slomba’s creativity emerged long before college. Slomba’s mother, Antonine Slomba remembers her as an expressive and confident child who was never afraid to stand out. “She would wear, like, a clown wig to the store and not care,” she said. When Slomba was around 11 or 12, she created posters filled with pictures she thought were beautiful, printed multiple copies and rode her bicycle around to hang them in coffee shops, at bus stops, and throughout the city. At the bottom of the posters she wrote, “Everyone is beautiful.”
The message reflected the way Slomba wanted people to feel, accepted, and comfortable being themselves. Her mother described her as “the warmest soul,” emphasizing how much she cares about helping others feel comfortable expressing who they are. That early desire to reach strangers remains evident in her work, which often focuses on overlooked people and experiences.
One of her earlier projects, “Blue Bandana,” examined women’s experiences in public spaces. Slomba and her then-girlfriend were sexually harassed on a train while other passengers remained silent. That encounter stayed with Slomba, not only because of the harassment but also because nobody stepped in to help. It changed how she thought about the relationship between women in public spaces and the meaning of community.
“There were four other women on the train, and no one said a single thing,” Slomba said.
Her photography can be emotional and uncomfortable because it engages with experiences that are not always easy to discuss. Rather than avoiding those subjects, Slomba uses her own perspective to bring them into view.
“A lot of my work you'll see is based around women or feminine people, queer people, people in my family, or me,” Slomba said. Although those subjects remain important to her, she also wants to continue challenging herself.
Alongside her solo exhibition, Slomba is developing senior thesis projects about lesbian nightlife for journalism and staged portraits with queer undertones for photography. The projects reflect two sides of her creative interests: documenting real communities while using carefully constructed images to explore identity and representation.
Those who know Slomba describe her as thoughtful, meticulous, and deeply committed to her ideas. Ryan Brady, a friend from her hometown of Buffalo, sees a similar thoughtfulness in the way she approaches both her art and her life.
“She’s like the definition of, like, she’s playing chess, and we’re playing checkers. She’s seeing things that you’re not seeing. And she’s like that in her life, too,” Brady said.
Brady describes their creative partnership as both productive and unpredictable. “She’s an ideal human. Working together, we’ve made some really cool things,” Brady said.
She also sees a deeper connection between Slomba’s art and her personal experiences. “But I think her art lives inside her so deeply that everything she does has some sort of connection to her past, or who she is, or where she wants to be,” Brady said. For Slomba, creativity is not limited to the time she spends behind a camera. It is connected to the people she knows, the memories she carries, and the way she understands the world around her.
Madeline Trudeau, a senior photography major and model, said “She’s really excited, she shows it throughout her whole body”.
Slomba's interest in telling stories extends beyond photography. Through journalism, she hopes to document communities and bring attention to their accomplishments and challenges. Slomba initially pursued journalism partly because her parents urging to have another career option, but she came to see the connection between the two fields.
Journalism also gave her another way to learn about people and share their experiences. “I've always been someone who loves to talk with people and learn more about things and document and bring attention to things, whether it be with photo or not,” Slomba said. She added that she enjoys “honing in on communities that I am a part of that I can speak to and bringing their struggles or accomplishments to life.”
Balancing both majors has not always been easy. Slomba has taken on heavy course loads to graduate on time while maintaining her scholarship. “I've been taking 24 credits, which is the maximum amount of credits that you could take,” she said.
The pressure has also taught her that taking care of herself is necessary. “When you let these things build up and all this stress, it eventually comes back to bite you in the ass,” Slomba said. “So, you really have to be able to take time for yourself. But it's hard.”
She hopes to work with an independent publication or magazine that combines photojournalism with community-focused visual storytelling, particularly stories about women and queer communities.
“Career-wise, I would love to work for a small independent publication or independent magazine that works with photojournalism, photo essays surrounding your community, and/or women,” she said.
Slomba is learning to balance her creative expectations with the unpredictability of her subjects. She recognizes that artists need room to experiment and grow. “I think that everybody needs to try to give themselves a lot more grace when it comes to their work and when it comes to their art, because we're all here to learn,” she said.
That perspective reflects an artist who takes her work seriously while understanding that creative growth is an ongoing process. Her photographs may be carefully constructed, but her ideas continue to evolve through experience, collaboration, and the willingness to try something new.
Her work asks viewers not simply to look, but to confront what an image makes them feel and remember. Whether she is revisiting her father’s life, examining women’s experiences in public spaces, or creating portraits that transform familiar people into new characters, Slomba uses photography to explore what remains beneath the surface.
Like the childhood posters that carried her message about beauty, her images are intended to reach beyond the moment in which they are seen. She hopes they stay with viewers, leaving behind questions, emotions, and memories that continue long after they have looked away.
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