NEWTON — Scarlet Black loves to photograph local flora and fauna, but she’s also fond of focusing her camera on the bridges near her North Surrey home.
“I can see both bridges from my house,” she said. “Actually, I’ve got a good series of photographs of the Skytrain bridge particularly. I take pictures of that when it’s really misty and you have that vanishing point and it looks like it’s from another world, even though it’s Surrey.”
Some images of the transit span are part of her “Solitudes” series, on view at Newton Cultural Centre for the rest of March in a joint exhibit with fellow Surrey-based photographer Jim Hatch.
Black’s work at the gallery includes toned monochrome and softly coloured photographs – “mostly about mood, memory and contemplation, and the feel is calmness,” she explained.
Over the past two years, Black photographed and blogged about Darts Hill Garden Park, the 7.5-acre oasis of vegetation located on 16th Avenue in South Surrey.
“(Time spent there) was an opportunity to experience much growth for me as an artist and photographer,” Black wrote in a recent invitation to her “Solitudes” exhibit. “It also saw a huge increase in recognition and appreciation of Darts Hill Garden.”
At Newton Cultural Centre, a smaller selection of garden pictures from Black’s “Paradise Now” collection are also shown.
Black is president of Surrey Art Gallery Association, and last year showed her work at the gallery at Bear Creek Park.
For a closer look at Hatch’s work, visit Jim-hatch.pixels.com.
Newton Cultural Centre is located at 13530 72nd Ave., west of King George Boulevard. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• At Surrey Art Gallery, large ceramic sculptures can be viewed in the reflecting pool in a showcase of works by master clay artist Keith Rice-Jones. His “Monumental Sculptures” exhibit, featuring five pieces range from 126 to 192 centimetres in height, is up until Oct. 30.
Also at SAG, a pair of new exhibits open on April 9 and continue until mid-June.
Augmented-reality technology is used in Paulo Majano’s “I Was Here” exhibit, which “transforms photographs of people enjoying outdoor spaces in Surrey and the surrounding area into surprising 3D scenes that invite the view to interact with the people and objects in them,” according to a statement by gallery operators.
Also this spring, Toronto-based artist Nep Sidhu’s “Shawdows in the Major Seventh” exhibit “bridges textiles and mixed media with music, architecture, social justice and the divine feminine.”
For more details, visit Surrey.ca/artgallery or call 604-501-5566.