The Capture Photography Festival is coming to the streets and studios of New Westminster.
The city is playing a major role in this year’s festival, which runs from April 1 to 28 at galleries, studios and other venues around the Lower Mainland.
Here in New West, viewers can check out the Gabor Gasztonyi Studio & Gallery, where Gasztonyi will be showing Hastings: a Second Look. The show, which has been selected as a featured exhibit for this year’s festival, builds upon Gasztonyi’s work photographing life on the Downtown Eastside – which he documented in the 2010 book A Room in the City.
He has continued to photograph and work in the area for the years since, “finding new images that reflect the difficult and often contradictory beauty of the people and the places they live.”
The exhibition opens Thursday, April 6, with a reception from 6 to 10 p.m., and continues until Saturday, May 13. The gallery is at 730 12th St.
Across town, the Van Dop Gallery will also be featured in the festival, with Inspiring Preservation: An Alternate Perspective. The exhibition features work by Vancouver-based photographic artist Desirée Patterson, who uses digitally collaged compositions to comment upon humanity’s reliance on and degradation of our environment.
Van Dop Gallery is at 421 Richmond St. See www.vandopgallery.com or call 604-521-7887 for a viewing.
The ongoing BRINK exhibition at New Media Gallery, featuring the work of five international artists, is also part of this year’s Capture festival. It’s ongoing at the gallery at Anvil Centre until April 30. See www.newmediagallery.ca for details.
And, in the public art realm, the City of New Westminster is welcoming two new public artworks in the city.
Matthew Brooks’ The Telephone Salesman can be seen at 350 Columbia St., while James Nizam’s Heliographic Scale is at 611 Sixth St. Both pieces of art came to the city in response to a call for photographic work that considers the theme of traffic.
Both these large-scale installations – Brooks’ work is 31 by 38 feet, while Nizam’s is 29 by 43 feet – speak to the exchange of information and the traffic of communication. Both will be on display for at least a year.
“Seeing such interesting and thought-provoking photography displayed on prominent walls in our city will only enhance and encourage further discussion of public art and its value to our community,” said Mary Trentadue, city councillor and member of the public art advisory committee, in a press release.
The Capture Photography Festival features more than 100 exhibitions, public art projects and events. See www.capturephotofest.com.
