Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, September 22, 2022: Zoe Marieh Urness, a Tlingit and Cherokee photographer (#1654)

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Artist of the Day, September 22, 2022: Zoe Marieh Urness, a Tlingit and Cherokee photographer (#1654)

Zoe Marieh Urness is a Pulitzer Prize nominated and internationally recognized Tlingit and Cherokee photographer who creates portraits of modern Indigenous cultures in traditional regalia and settings to convey the message, "We are here, and we are thriving through our traditions."

Drawing on her own childhood experience as a cultural ambassador for Tlingit tribal heritage, Urness is masterful in sharing Indigenous narratives. She is continuously fascinated by documenting and exploring the nuances of each tribe’s expression of their culture in connection to their original landscape. Her signature style fuses documentary and fine art to create a seamless merging of past and present, and depicts ancestral ways being practiced by modern Natives in their full integrity.

Indigenous Motherhood is an emerging photo series and individuated part of Zoe Urness' larger body of work, Keeping the Traditions Alive. For this part of the series, Alpha Female+ grant winner Urness returned to the Pacific Northwest where she was raised in order to give birth to her daughter, and was inspired to turn her camera on indigenous motherhood. Over the past five weeks, she visited coastal and inlet tribes to capture the stories of different stages of motherhood. Urness photographed indigenous mothers wearing regalia in varied landscapes to represent the deep connection to mother Earth and to their cultural traditions. Learn more about her Alpha Female+ grant-winning project below.

Why Sepia?
In my fine art photography career I have primarily used black and white 120mm medium format film and printed with a sepia tone treatment. I found using the Sony equipment made my images vibrant and almost matched what your eye sees naturally, a large contrast to the natural and grainy quality I value when shooting on film. This camera has me excited to explore my process in color further outside of this grant experience. Over these past several weeks, I feel that the varied landscapes, including the use of the underwater Sony camera in addition to the use of artificial lighting in some of the images, enabled me to bring out new elements in my work. Ultimately the sepia tone treatment allows the work to look cohesive and is a natural continuation of my overarching method.

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