How do we interface with nature in the city? These are some of the questions asked by photographer Victoria Bryan in Metro Nature, which will open at Utopia restaurant, 445 E. 1st St., on Saturday, July 16.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Screen-Shot-2016-07-14-at-4.00.51-PM.png” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”“Always on the Other Side,” photo by Victoria Bryan” captionposition=”right”] “In ways both obvious and subtle, signs of nature change our experience of living and working in a busy urban center,” Bryan said. “Nature and the built environment occupy the same crowded space; there is so much happening on every city street. The camera guides me to slow down so that I can see what I’m usually too rushed to notice. When I’m in the moment, I can explore a wasp’s best side through the lens or align a tree’s reflection in a rain puddle.”
The show contains 366 photographs of nature within the urban environment. Shot between November 2011 and July 2016, the images are drawn from daily photographic safaris through city streets, and most photos were taken in Long Beach.
“I see Victoria with her camera in the neighborhood all the time,” said Kamran Assadi, co-owner of Utopia. “We’re looking forward to having her images on our walls and screens.”
Bryan has been a Long Beach resident since 1985, curating exhibitions and showing her own work in Long Beach and San Pedro during that time.
She teaches in the Cal State Long Beach School of Education and the Art Department and, until recently, was the executive director for the Arts Council for Long Beach.
The opening reception for Metro Nature will take place Saturday, July 16 from 4pm to 6pm.
Source: Victoria Bryan
