The Theodore Payne Art Gallery is pleased to feature the photography of Fred Kuretski. His arresting images of California native wildflowers were taken using an X-ray machine, which exposes the structures of flowers and leaves in unique detail. Many of these photographs have been exhibited at the Orlando Gallery in the San Fernando Valley, and this exhibit is being presented again specially for Theodore Payne. Kuretski spent many hours on our grounds collecting cuttings from nearly 100 wildflowers to serve as models in this project.

You’ll see incredible detail of California natives, including an almost otherworldly portrait of a native thistle and a stunning 30-by-50-inch radiograph of California poppy flowers and foliage. The radiographs “reveal the ghostlike and ethereal details of plant interiors while parts of exterior structures remain visible,” says Kuretski.

The exhibit also includes cross-polarized photographs with intense colors, which provide a stunning contrast to the delicate radiographs. To make these photographs, Kuretski used polarized light to capture on film only the light reflected from the leaves and flowers—not the surrounding light. The plants appear to generate their own light and thus look, says Kuretski, as they are “suspended in a black void.” Both of Kuretski’s techniques reveal native plants in a new and striking light.

The exhibit, the artist comments, is “a celebration of the diverse ecology of Los Angeles, which is always underfoot but almost never visible.”