OnView: Subversive Beauty - Bruce Fayman

Subversive Beauty

Digital Paintings of Invasive Plants and the Landscapes They Inhabit

November 8, 2024- January 25, 2025

From the artist, Bruce Fayman:

An open field, rolling hillside, or urban canyon covered with orange, yellow, or purple flowers can produce stunning landscapes that inspire artists, photographers, or anyone who appreciates natural beauty. But frequently, those flowers are weeds or intruders growing beyond their native boundaries, invading new habitats.  Some are natural plants that have been labeled weeds because they threaten domesticated animals or crops. Others were introduced long ago by well-meaning amateur gardeners, early explorers, and professional landscapers, or carried to remote locations by hooves, boots, or wheels. Either way, humans have enabled these plants to redesign or recolor our views of the environments we see every day. 

Some of these intruders move in gradually, blurring the line between natural and unnatural. They thrive, changing the landscape’s appearance and altering what we recognize as beautiful. We label these interlopers subversive, aggressive, invasive, noxious, yet they are almost always beautiful - deceptively beautiful. 

My work focuses on the strain put on natural environments by these weeds and our complex relationship with them. We have forever changed our fields, urban parks, and landscapes into something manipulated, manmade. 

I shot my photographs in the fields, backyards, and roadsides where these plants now thrive.  I then digitally altered and manipulated the photographs to create these images, reinforcing the complexity of our relationship to the natural world.

Exhibition Opportunities

Interested in exhibiting your art? Apply today! Go to mysdpl.org/visualarts

Applications will be considered on a first-come basis. Organizations and individuals based in San Diego or serving primarily San Diego residents, which have not used exhibit space within the past year, will be given priority.