Lee Deigaard

In her first solo exhibition with the gallery, artist Lee Deigaard presents collaborative nocturnal portraits of animal protagonists and the emotional and physical landscapes we mutually inhabit. Circulatory systems, ecological processes of flow, immersion, and convergence inform much of her work, which explores animal autonomy and human trespass.

Using a camera and infrared gadgetry, she becomes the hunter or gatherer – “shooting,” “taking,” or “capturing” her images. She works with known animals, like friends’ and family pets, wielding her handheld camera. With wild animals, inhabiting former farmlands bounded by highways and zones of active hunting, she keeps her distance, learning only what they choose to announce, without informed consent. The movements of deer, wolves, bobcats, rabbits, raccoons, all become performance, changed by our voyeurism. They sense the camera as a set of eyes and become poised, ready to jump. Glowing among the bushes and trees, they appear in stark contrast to the dark environments, awakening the sense of being seen in the viewer.