Photography

Item Description

Isa Leshko (American, b. 1971)
Blue, Australian Kelpie, Age 19, II, from Elderly Animals, 2012
Archival pigment print
Image: 9 x 9 inches
Framed: 16 1/4 x 15 1/4
Edition: 3/15; signed and dated on back in pencil

Isa Leshko is the recipient of Silver Eye Center for Photography's 2012 Keystone Award for a Pennsylvania artist. She was selected for this honor by Julie Saul, owner and director of Julie Saul Gallery, New York, for her project "Elderly Animals.” A solo exhibition of these poignant, beautiful portraits of animals that are old or nearing the end stages of their lives will open at Silver Eye in mid-May 2012.

Isa was inspired to carry out her project after spending a year caring for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease and is now in a nursing home. She considered documenting the experience through pictures but soon decided against it. Later, Leshko found her outlet while visiting a relative in New Jersey, where she came across a blind 35-year-old horse named Petey.

“I was just completely mesmerized by this animal,” she said. “I spent the afternoon photographing him. When I reviewed my film I began to realize that I had a means of exploring my feelings around aging and my mother’s illness.”

Since that first encounter, Isa has sought out and photographed animals that come from diverse backgrounds. Some of these animals have experienced neglect and abuse before they were placed in sanctuaries. Others have been well cared for since an early age. Some appear very old; others are youthful despite their advanced ages.  In order to achieve a sense of intimacy in these portraits, she spends several hours with the animals tries to visit them multiple times.

About The Artist

Isa Leshko's work was recently featured on The Today Show Blog  (March 7, 2012) and on The Daily Beast (March 4, 2012). Her work has also been reviewed published widely throughout the globe, including coverage in The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, The Guardian, NPR, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin (SZ-Magazin), The Washington Post, and Zoom Magazine.

Isa received her BA from Haverford College, where she studied cognitive psychology and neurobiology. She spent the 1990s working for dot.com startups as a project manager and software engineer before she discovered her passion for photography.

Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States, including solo shows at the Corden|Potts Gallery, San Francisco, the Galveston Arts Center, the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA, and the Houston Center for Photography. It is in numerous private collections and has been purchased by the Boston Public Library, Haverford College, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for their permanent collections.