Art lovers gathered at the Rostel Photography Gallery in the restored 1896 Rostel Building in Dunsmuir on Saturday evening for the opening of the Brian Lesteberg solo exhibit “Raised to Hunt.”
Wine and beer flowed as gallery owners John Rickard and Rika Noda followed up the success of their Bill Owens show in July with Lesteberg’s oddly gentle images of people hunting.
Though Lesteberg – who was recently chosen for inclusion in 2008’s “25 Under 25: Upcoming American Photographers” – could not attend, Rickard and Noda filled in for the artist to describe the reasons why they chose his work for the new show.
Adding to the heightened ambiance, which gave a small stretch of Sacramento Avenue the feel of Manhattan’s Lower East Side for the evening, were the mellow, earnest sounds of Mount Shasta native Angelina Rae on the acoustic guitar.
“We wanted to show [Lesteberg] because it’s the start of the hunting season,” gallery owner Noda said as patrons browsed through the photographs, “plus the fact that his work deals with that subject. Whether you support hunting or not, his pictures don’t have a definite point of view, it doesn’t make you look at hunting a certain way. We always try to find a subject that interests people around here. I don’t hunt, but I think that they are beautiful pictures.”
Lesteberg’s color photographs ranged from graphic depictions of hunters field dressing downed game, to detached portraits of hunters in the act of hunting, to an image of a mounted duck, to an ironic shot of a camouflage tablecloth at a hunter-friendly restaurant.
Drawing on the North Dakota landscape against which he grew up, Lesteberg also offered a startling and quiet image of blood spoor on fresh snow titled “Hoof Track With Blood,” as well as a picture of his father plucking feathers from the breast of a goose he had just shot, titled “Dad Field Dressing a Goose.” In the picture, Lesteberg’s father cradles the goose on his lap as he scatters the feathers to the wind. The feathers make a V pattern in the field where they are blown, and there is an obvious, even sacred, intimacy in the picture between the hunter and the prey he has killed. The goose’s chest has been laid open by the gunshot; Lesteberg’s father’s careful dressing of the goose seems to negate any accusation of violence.
According to Rickard, “These are hunting families here in Dunsmuir. They may never have looked at their lives as art before. Whether you are a New York socialite or come from the small town of Dunsmuir, art is in everyday life. That’s what I wanted to choreograph. In Dunsmuir they appreciate these images differently than they do in Manhattan.”
In attendance at the opening was College of the Siskiyous fine arts instructor James Gilmore, an accomplished artist himself, whose blog “The Jefferson Agrarian” (www.jeffagrarian.com) has quickly become a leading voice and forum on the arts and culture of Siskiyou County.
Having hurried back from a trip to Reno to make the opening, Gilmore commented on the Lesteberg show, “It’s really appropriate for our area. It’s great for my [COS] students to have this – this photographer is only 25 years old – and this is his environment, he’s shooting his world. You know, there’s nothing like [the Rostel Gallery] in all of Reno. Now we have the Liberty Gallery in Yreka and the Rostel in Dunsmuir. This is great for Siskiyou County.”
The Lesteberg show runs at the Rostel Gallery through Oct. 25.
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Art lovers gathered at the Rostel Photography Gallery in the restored 1896 Rostel Building in Dunsmuir on Saturday evening for the opening of the Brian Lesteberg solo exhibit “Raised to Hunt.”
Wine and beer flowed as gallery owners John Rickard and Rika Noda followed up the success of their Bill Owens show in July with Lesteberg’s oddly gentle images of people hunting.
Though Lesteberg – who was recently chosen for inclusion in 2008’s “25 Under 25: Upcoming American Photographers” – could not attend, Rickard and Noda filled in for the artist to describe the reasons why they chose his work for the new show.
Adding to the heightened ambiance, which gave a small stretch of Sacramento Avenue the feel of Manhattan’s Lower East Side for the evening, were the mellow, earnest sounds of Mount Shasta native Angelina Rae on the acoustic guitar.
“We wanted to show [Lesteberg] because it’s the start of the hunting season,” gallery owner Noda said as patrons browsed through the photographs, “plus the fact that his work deals with that subject. Whether you support hunting or not, his pictures don’t have a definite point of view, it doesn’t make you look at hunting a certain way. We always try to find a subject that interests people around here. I don’t hunt, but I think that they are beautiful pictures.”
Lesteberg’s color photographs ranged from graphic depictions of hunters field dressing downed game, to detached portraits of hunters in the act of hunting, to an image of a mounted duck, to an ironic shot of a camouflage tablecloth at a hunter-friendly restaurant.
Drawing on the North Dakota landscape against which he grew up, Lesteberg also offered a startling and quiet image of blood spoor on fresh snow titled “Hoof Track With Blood,” as well as a picture of his father plucking feathers from the breast of a goose he had just shot, titled “Dad Field Dressing a Goose.” In the picture, Lesteberg’s father cradles the goose on his lap as he scatters the feathers to the wind. The feathers make a V pattern in the field where they are blown, and there is an obvious, even sacred, intimacy in the picture between the hunter and the prey he has killed. The goose’s chest has been laid open by the gunshot; Lesteberg’s father’s careful dressing of the goose seems to negate any accusation of violence.
According to Rickard, “These are hunting families here in Dunsmuir. They may never have looked at their lives as art before. Whether you are a New York socialite or come from the small town of Dunsmuir, art is in everyday life. That’s what I wanted to choreograph. In Dunsmuir they appreciate these images differently than they do in Manhattan.”
In attendance at the opening was College of the Siskiyous fine arts instructor James Gilmore, an accomplished artist himself, whose blog “The Jefferson Agrarian” (www.jeffagrarian.com) has quickly become a leading voice and forum on the arts and culture of Siskiyou County.
Having hurried back from a trip to Reno to make the opening, Gilmore commented on the Lesteberg show, “It’s really appropriate for our area. It’s great for my [COS] students to have this – this photographer is only 25 years old – and this is his environment, he’s shooting his world. You know, there’s nothing like [the Rostel Gallery] in all of Reno. Now we have the Liberty Gallery in Yreka and the Rostel in Dunsmuir. This is great for Siskiyou County.”
The Lesteberg show runs at the Rostel Gallery through Oct. 25.
