Zachary Silva’s camera escorts us to extraordinary places. We see UC Merced from high above, the land around the campus warped by a fisheye lens. We look straight down a pole at a fluttering U.S. flag and two lonely tractors.
These eye-popping points of view are among other photographs by Silva on display at Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock. The UC Merced student is one of a dozen artists in an exhibition called “Valley Focus: Growing Talent.”
Each of the 12 artists in the show is 35 or younger and has Central Valley ties. Their work was chosen from more than 30 entries.
“Valley Focus: Growing Talent” continues through May 17 at the arts center, 250 N. Broadway, Turlock. At 6 p.m. May 8, Silva will take part in a talk at the center about the exhibit.
On a breezy April morning, sitting at a table along UC Merced’s Academic Walk, Silva, 23, said that besides taking the viewer to unusual places, he wants to convey his fascination with intersecting forces from the old and the new.
“I like to explore contradictions and juxtaposition. Humanity and technology. Agriculture and technology,” he said. “Here on campus, I can feel the future of it all. Then I look past this and see beautiful fields and landscapes.”
Silva is a fourth-year mechanical engineering major with an eye toward conducting research into agricultural technology. His studies into the use of drones bridge his interests in photography and agriculture.
