Senior art major Angel Itua debuted her solo exhibition, “I’ve Seen L.A.,” Wednesday. Located in the Lindhurst Gallery, “I’ve Seen L.A.” is a captivating and imaginative reinterpretation of Los Angeles as “the City of Angels.” As the opening statement of the exhibit states, “I’ve Seen L.A.” “urges the viewer to wake up from La La Land, and to perceive both real issues that exist in the city but also the beautiful and enriching culture of the Angelenos.”

Although “I’ve Seen L.A.” is Itua’s first solo exhibition, she isn’t inexperienced. Previously, Itua collaborated with fellow Roski student Jayna Dias to create “The Black Experience,” an exhibition focused on exploring the intersectionality between culture and identity. Reflecting on the collaboration, Itua said she appreciated the creative flexibility that partnering with someone else provided her.

“That was really fun — to do it with another person,” Itua said. “We also had different art mediums as well, so we could talk about similar topics but through different means, and I liked that.”

In “I’ve Seen L.A.,” Itua managed to maintain the same creative flexibility she admired.

“I didn’t want this exhibition to be just paper on a wall, so I tried to make it a little bit more creative,” she said. “It’s definitely different doing it on my own, when the only medium I’m using is photography.”

True to her desire to create an experience beyond “paper on a wall,” Itua’s unique photography style, use of staging and costuming, and expertise with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom allowed her to create a wide range of experiences for her audience. Itua’s photography is lifelike and inventive, and her collection of photographs in “I’ve Seen L.A. ‘’ beautifully highlights the underbelly of L.A.

In the photo series “Angels of L.A.,” Itua photographed Angelenos doing their everyday activities while wearing angel wings on their back. The series features children smiling as they play, mothers holding their children and grandfathers and grandmothers smiling at the camera. The series spans across an entire wall of the exhibit and asks the viewer to consider Angelenos and the culture they represent apart from the glitz and glamor of the traditional idea of  La La Land.

“There are people that are from here, who have generations of family here, and it’s so beautiful what they’ve brought to L.A. It’s so enriching,” Itua said. “I wanted to focus more on that because I feel like we should be respecting the culture here.”

Other photographs in the exhibit take on a more surrealist aesthetic, such as “My Sorrows to you, Mother Earth,” which features a woman, well-lit and almost ethereal, at the center of a dark and rocky beach backdrop. In the background, face masks and other trash litter the ground.

“For this exhibition, I wanted to do more surrealism-type art pieces. I did a lot of Photoshop and used composite imagery,” Itua said.

Itua was also inspired by other creatives online, such as @seb_xavier on Instagram.

“He draws onto his images and transforms them that way. I was inspired by that to make my images more surreal … He definitely inspired me [in] the way he uses social commentary to create surreal imagery,” Itua said.

The title photo “I’ve Seen L.A.” features a naked woman with her back facing the viewer. She peers over her shoulder suspiciously, calling attention to the carved-out wings on her back. It is this striking image in particular that drew many viewers into the exhibit.

Christian Calma, a fifth-year majoring in architecture, became interested in the exhibit after seeing flyers with the title image printed.

“I’ve been walking by the last couple of days, seeing [the exhibit] get set up, and I saw specifically the title image and I was just so intrigued by it,” Calma said.

Elizabeth Smiley, a freshman majoring in dance, visited the exhibit as a part of her class, which was next door.

“I saw the cover photo first, and I didn’t really understand it, but now that I was able to read the [opening statement] and see the other art, it makes so much sense, and this is a really cool creative concept that I like,” Smiley said.

Other viewers said they appreciated Itua’s commentary on the cultural cornerstones of L.A. For Raquel Chatfield-Taylor, a senior majoring in cinema and media studies, Itua’s photo series “Blue Print” was fascinating.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh, all of L.A. has been simultaneously built up at the same time’… This is one strong piece [of] the blueprint of Los Angeles,” Chatfield-Taylor said. “The inclusion of jewelry and nail accessories as expressions of culture and art and the joy on display — I find this one so captivating.”

“I’ve Seen L.A.” is an incredible collection of Itua’s photography and a testament to the artistry, creativity and social commentary involved.

“There are a lot of different topics that I can go on about, and these are just some of the ones I really want people to think about and focus on,” Itua said.