In his third exhibition at the Carl Berg Gallery Donnie Molls continues his exploration of subcultures within the American experience. Over the last decade Molls has primarily centered his subject matter on the desert landscape documenting the remnants of a by-gone western expansion. In the works for the upcoming show Molls shifts his focus to the culture of hunting.

Molls has always engaged subject matters that reflect his personal experience. Molls is a big fan of the western desert landscape and has explored it as an observer, participant and visual recorder. In “An American Heritage” Molls captures the tradition of hunting in this same manner. He understands his subject matter beyond what a casual observer might comprehend and this adds a sense of truism to his paintings.

Molls comes from a family of hunters that dates back generations. He was raised in a lifestyle and tradition that may now seem archaic and out of touch to some yet it is his history. In these new work Molls explores his own history in a poignant series of paintings that are a continuation of his hybrid-photo works. These newest work however are no longer culled from his own photographs but instead are taken from photographs of his family archives dating back from the 1920’s through the 1970’s.

Molls has chosen to maintain the purpose and integrity of the original photographs in his transformation of the images almost as if he was commissioned by the hunters themselves. By choosing not to contemporize the image and reinterpret them with current social and moral values he creates works that force the viewer to acknowledge a shared human history of man’s relationship to nature.