Ellen C. Benya | Nature & Industry in Harmony
Opening Reception:
FRIDAY, October 9th | 5-7PM
Details
Exhibit open: Fridays: 1-5 | Saturdays: 10-5 | Sundays: 11-3
About the Exhibit:
I discovered unique landscapes at the tip of Lake Michigan in 2003. In that unsettled time just after 9/11, I moved back to Riverside, IL from northern Florida into a house that was livable, but I didn’t love. Initially the plan was to move again when my husband and I found the “right” home in Riverside. But exhausted by the idea of moving again, that plan was quickly abandoned. Instead, we bought a small fixer-upper in Beverly Shores as a vacation home. Its proximity to the beach and nearby trails that lead into the Indiana Dunes National Park made it the perfect getaway haven.
After a long hiatus following my initial exposure to photography in college, I returned to it in 2019. From the Beverly Shores beach, I began by pointing my camera lens toward Chicago during sunset and the blue hour, capturing images of the lake, the sky and the Chicago skyline. Over time my perspective shifted, and I started to incorporate the industrial complexes surrounding Beverly Shores, the adjacent steel mills beyond the sand dunes in Gary to the west and the Michigan City power plant to the east. My current series of photographs highlights the coexistence of industry and nature in this region. My hope is that the “delicate balance” between nature and industry there continues to hold.
Another series in development explores the impact that prescribed burns have on the local landscape, a strangely beautiful destructive restorative event.
About the Artist:
Ellen Benya is a Chicago-based photographer and pediatric radiologist with an affinity for images. As a premed student in college, her favorite classes were film photography and art history. During her 30+ years as a pediatric radiologist, Ellen has analyzed X-rays, ultrasounds and CT and MR images daily. In 2019 she returned to image taking, enrolling in a digital photography class. This led to subsequent classes in visual strategy, color, digital photo editing and printing. Over the past seven years she has dedicated much of her free time to photography.
