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Art Unexpected images courtesy of Mick Victor. <\/em><\/p>\n The first time local photographer Mick Victor exhibited works from his now nine-years-and-running series entitled Art Unexpected<\/em>, a woman told him \u201cNo, these are not photographs, these are paintings.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said, ‘No, I’m the artist and I shot them,’ and she just kinda got mad at me and decided not to talk to me anymore,\u201d laughed Victor. He said he’s always wanted to do his day job, essentially, and then run off to be a painter. <\/p>\n “I’m in love with paint,” he said. “I love the subtlety of paint. I love what it achieves, so maybe this was my way of doing that. My sensitivity to what would be in paint. I think you’ll see some really subtle things Friday, if you come. There’s some really, really soft and painterly pieces that will be in the show.\u201d<\/p>\n This Friday at the EXPO Arts Center, Victor will present photographs he took from the urban environments of London, Long Beach, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Venice and New York, of places like walls, garbage cans and sidewalks. Each of his photographs focus on where the paint has piled, where people have painted over each other\u2019s work, graffiti or otherwise, again and again to create, in Victor\u2019s eyes, an accidental masterpiece to be remembered.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not particularly into graffiti; that\u2019s somebody\u2019s art,” he said. “I\u2019m not looking to document their art. What I find interesting is that unintentional art, that unexpected art when everybody has painted on top of each other, what that ends up being.\u201d<\/p>\n Victor, who took to photography at the young age of six, is as much a skilled portrait photographer as he is an abstract image maker. He tends to see things a little differently than the average joe. He uses his unique perspective to give the viewers of his work a chance to look at their own surrounding environments a little less immediately. Regarding Friday\u2019s collection of images, the artist hopes to instill in his guests a desire to gaze without judgment.<\/p>\n \u201cAllow yourself to look at things differently,\u201c he advised. \u201cAllow yourself to see things in as many ways as possible. Don’t just look at it and say, ‘Oh that’s a Pepsi spilled on the sidewalk,’ you know, let yourself look at it. Don’t be afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n He said many people look at his work and begin to notice the accidental art that occurs in the world around them every day. <\/p>\n During a typical excursion to find these unexpected compositions, Victor will oftentimes walk around a city for an entire day. He shoots almost nothing in the first hour or two.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that is because if you just go out there and look for the really obvious things, they’re not that interesting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n If he finds a spot, an alley, a wall, a particularly \u201cfertile\u201d space, he\u2019ll buy a lunch and maybe take a seat. The longer he stares, the more time he takes to look around, the more uncanny potential works of art will begin to present themselves. Sometimes it\u2019s a large-scale segment he\u2019ll find to be dramatically intriguing or a piece as small as four inches tall.<\/p>\n Compared to past exhibits of the Art Unexpected<\/em> series, this particular show is a bit more refined, Victor says.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s easier, it\u2019s quieter, it\u2019s more fun to coexist with these pieces,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s calmer, a little more sophisticated, it\u2019s certainly more elegant. I love the colors, they\u2019re much more subtle and I think they\u2019re pieces you can live with.\u201d<\/p>\n Catch the opening reception for Art Unexpected<\/em> on Friday, July 3 during the Bixby Knolls First Fridays event from 6:00PM to 9:00PM.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to check out the artist\u2019s current work or here<\/a> to watch a video about his process.<\/p>\n {FG_GEOMAP [33.835014,-118.18543899999997] FG_GEOMAP}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first time local photographer Mick Victor exhibited works from his now nine-years-and-running series entitled Art Unexpected<\/em>, a woman told him \u201cNo, these are not photographs, these are paintings.\u201d This Friday at the EXPO Arts Center, Victor will present photographs he took from the urban environments of London, Long Beach, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Venice and New York. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":67859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[927],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-expo-arts-center","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2528"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2528"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"victor3\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/victor3.jpg\")
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