Ryan Allen, formerly an executive chef at restaurants including Barrister’s in Gastonia and Reid’s Fine Foods, has been focusing on photography and digital art since leaving the restaurant industry earlier this year. Though he still hops into the kitchen on occasion to help out a friend in need, Allen is more often snapping photos of food than cooking these days. He was recently selected by Bojangles’ to take part in the Charlotte-born fried chicken chain’s debut NFT collection, for which Allen created a robot chicken out of Bojangles’ Bo Boxes.

Next month, his artwork will be on display at The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. The residency was inspired by a current exhibit featuring works of photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, which will be on display through June 19. The exhibit, Annemarie Schwarzenbach: Departure Without Destination, features 200 photographs, archival material, and film.

“Consumed by wanderlust, a desire for social progress, and a sense of adventure, Schwarzenbach traveled extensively through Europe, Central Asia, Central and North Africa, and the United States between 1933 and her death in 1942,” the Bechtler describes on the exhibition’s information page. “While Schwarzenbach saw herself primarily as a writer, she was a pioneer of photojournalism in Switzerland. Her work as a journalist, coupled with her upper-class background and her status as the wife of French diplomat Claude Clarac granted her extraordinary freedom of travel for the period.”

Allen says he applied to the residency with little expectation of getting in. He was spending time with his mom, contemplating remaining up in New York to help her through a difficult medical situation, when he got word of his acceptance into the residency.

“We were arguing about me being up there and whatnot,” Allen says. “She was like, ‘See, it’s a sign. It’s a sign you’re supposed to be there. You’ve still got stuff to do.'”

Since leaving the restaurant industry, Allen has spent time traveling to photograph farms across the Piedmont, which has led him to take pictures in small towns such as Morganton and Sanford. Those are the photographs that inspired his acceptance into the residency. Next month, the photos will be on display at the VAPA Center. Until then, he’ll be working on creating his first photojournalism project with guidance from the Bechtler and Light Factory staff. He hopes the final project will tell the story of how tightly interwoven farmers, the towns surrounding them, and even those in the cities are dependent on one another.

“If I can, [I hope to] showcase why the importance of local should be more underneath the microscope, because of how much it trickles down into what North Carolina is,” Allen says. “You can see it in the small downtowns.”

For example, Allen mentions how farmers are keeping some North Carolina food history alive by raising heritage breeds of pigs that might otherwise be extinct. This photography focus keeps him involved in the restaurant scene, connected to his old life.

“Do I miss it? Yes,” he says. “Do I like being behind the camera lens right now and getting the different connections that I’m getting and growing differently and working on some other dreams I want to come to fruition? I’m extremely kind of happy with it. It’s the first time I’ve ever been completely selfish and it’s hard to do that, but I’m enjoying it.”

Read our earlier coverage of Allen’s decision to leave the restaurant industry.

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