Luzene Hill "Enate," Portland Art Museum 2018
Retracing the Trace
Luzene Hill in conversation with Andrew Alexander
Action performed by Luzene Hill, Technical Director: Keith Hinze, produced by Portland Art Museum, Oregon
Luzene Hill creates from a place where vulnerability and strength come together as companions rather than contradictions. A visual artist of Cherokee descent, she’s known for powerful, research-intensive installations and drawings that confront trauma, sovereignty, and survival.
Born in Georgia and based for much of her life in Atlanta, Hill came to art later than many—earning her MFA from Western Carolina University in her fifties—yet her work has quickly garnered national recognition for its raw intimacy and meticulous construction. Her practice is deeply informed by her heritage as a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, whose homeland lies in the mountains of western North Carolina. In recent years, Hill has relocated to Cherokee, within the Qualla Boundary, a land trust established in the 19th century that is home to the Eastern Band. For Hill, this move is both personal and political: a return to ancestral ground and a conscious rooting of her creative practice in the living present of her community.
Her work often draws on the language of ritual and repetition. In Retracing the Trace (2011–15), she used thousands of crimson Quipu‑style cords—dyed with ink, tea, and natural stains—to map unreported sexual assaults and redefine absence through ceremony and the imprint of her own body. In Enate (2017), she layered silk‑taffeta female figures dyed with cochineal into a mantle of protection and memory. Her materials—paper, ink, charcoal, beeswax, silk—are fragile and precise, foregrounding the tension between ephemerality and insistence.
Her most recent installation, pleasure in being limitless (2025), turns toward sensuality, space, and autonomy with renewed boldness. In this conversation, Hill reflects on that shift, her relationship to individual and cultural sovereignty, and the ways vulnerability, sensuality, and survival continue to shape her work.
Andrew Alexander
Atlanta, Georgia
June 2025
Luzene Hill, pleasure in being limitless, 2025, Beeswax, silver leaf, silver cord, cochineal, tea stain, ink, charcoal, mulberry paper, aluminum and stainless steel. Installation dimensions: variable
Photo: Hannah Traore Gallery, © Luzene Hill
Andrew Alexander: The last time we spoke, you were moving into a new studio. How is that transition going? What’s the space like now that you’re settling in, and how is it influencing your process or sense of presence?
Luzene Hill: Moving into a new studio, like much in life, has not gone exactly as planned. Delays, due to renovation of the space, then an opportunity to make new work for a show in New York, put the actual move and set-up on hold temporarily. It has been a lesson in patience, taking life as it comes.
The studio is getting set up, just more slowly than I expected. It’s the largest space I’ve had since my studio at The Atlanta Contemporary, apart from the temporary studios I’ve occupied as an artist-in-residence. With bigger space, I plan to begin painting on large canvases again, which is something I haven’t done since the early 2000’s. At that point, I became very interested in conceptual installations and ritual action/performance, while continuing to make drawings. My introduction to art making, at midlife, was Drawing 101 at Georgia State University. Drawing remains essential to my practice.
Drawing and painting are much the same process for me, different only in scale. I have missed the physicality of making large expressive paintings. Drawing and painting represent a pure form of art to me, as the process is intuitive. I relinquish control to the materials, to the experience itself. I begin drawing without an image in mind. I usually drop pigment (ink or tea stain or gouache) on paper and allow it to find its shape. Whatever appears will provoke me to respond by making a mark. This begins a rhythm and dialogue with the materials.
Conceptual installation/performance is a more intellectual practice, but I approach it in a similar way. Those projects involve a good deal of research, which I love, and find very absorbing. Research, then writing, play back and forth in my process, along with brainstorming on large pieces of paper to create text diagramming.
As I’m now spending more time in the larger studio, I’m thinking about new work (sculptural forms) to express one’s physical relationship to a space—close spaces that feel enveloping and safe, or confining and smothering. How we feel as we move through and out of it. How to invoke those feelings with materials and forms?
Luzene Hill, Matriline Series, 2021, Drawing, ink, charcoal, tea stain, colored pencil on paper, 14 x 22 inches, © Luzene Hill
AA: The move sounds like part of a deeper shift—something that’s been unfolding over time. Can you talk about that sense of direction, and how it’s been guiding you—both as an artist and as a person?
LH: “A shift that has been unfolding” is a good description. Having larger space, in which I can make messier work, and leave it out to look at, think about, feels luxurious. I can work on a piece and then drift over to another work in progress. I can plan larger installations and make maquettes to scale.
A different kind of shift involves how I feel about my work as a whole. For quite a while, I’ve felt held back in the work I make, in size and materials, but also in what I felt free to express. I have edited my work, consciously and unconsciously. That editing relates to my work focused on violence against women. This is a complex issue for me, which has taken time, experience, and maturing to sort out. I’m still sorting!
The phenomenon of sexual assault is multifaceted. It’s a difficult subject to approach, for anyone, but especially for someone who experienced that trauma. I never intended to make art about rape. I considered my experience to be a private, personal trauma, and vowed it would not define me. A few years after I was assaulted, I began to recognize violence in my drawings. I denied it was there, until I was confronted by other artists about the images. Even when I acknowledged that reality, it was a few years before I exhibited those drawings.
The first installation I made addressing sexual assault was . . . the body and blood (2009). I used global statistics as a basis for creating material volume and a way of distancing myself from the subject. I didn’t want the work to be about me, nor for it to be victim art. I wanted to present the issue in an abstract way and to provoke dialogue. The installation was painful to make. When it was completed, I never wanted to go through that process again. However, the response I received from other survivors made me realize that conceptual work in a gallery space is an effective way to present difficult subjects. The work gave a voice to other survivors, who chose to keep their experiences private – as I had for many years. That realization motivated me to push the issue, which now held even more meaning. The next installation I made, Retracing the Trace (2011-2015), was an exposition of my own trauma. The gallery became a metaphor for my body, from the body print I created on the floor, through the ritual of processing the remnants of violence into a reckoning.
As I continued to make work about violence against women as well as other issues, I began to feel pigeonholed, based on only one aspect of my art. I came to feel I couldn’t make the erotic, sensual images that unconsciously flowed out of me, because they would be viewed through the lens of my work about sexual assault. Rape is not about sex; it’s about anger and power. Rape is not a form of sensuality or eroticism, it is violence.
AA: In past conversations, you’ve spoken about vulnerability as central to your artistic process. How has your relationship to vulnerability changed over time, and in what ways is it still shaping the work you’re making today?
LH: The violent trauma I experienced in 1994 had a significant impact on my life and art. The inexplicable, random nature of the assault baffled me, and over time was something I had to reconcile. I was forced to come to terms with the reality of my physical and psychological vulnerability, to question my belief system, and then to investigate vulnerability as a concept.
I had viewed being vulnerable as a weakness, a threat. Eventually, I have come to embrace it. Vulnerability is a strength. People build emotional walls around themselves in the mistaken idea it will make them less vulnerable. Having barriers around our feelings and emotions does not make us safer. It keeps us from fully experiencing the intensity of being alive. I read a long quote by Helen Keller about vulnerability, which said that trying to protect oneself from life is futile. At the end of the paragraph she stated, “life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” That idea resonated with me! I didn’t want “nothing.” I wanted a grand, daring adventure, and have learned to tolerate insecurity and uncertainty to have it.
The random violence I experienced also taught me that life is fleeting and fragile because I believed I would be killed that morning. Knowing that life is fragile has taught me to savor small moments, those delicate ones that come when relating to another person, being in nature, and making art. This is an idea I try to build into my work, from the materials I often use (silk, beeswax, paper and ink) which are fragile and easily destroyed, to the immersive installations I make. My installations surround the viewer, to encourage engagement with the work, and moreover, engagement with life.
Luzene Hill, Revelate, 2023, Installation/performance. Mylar emergency blankets, heavy weight Mylar, silk organza, aluminum, dimensions variable. © Luzene Hill, courtesy of the Artist photo: Asheville Art Museum, NC
AA: Thank you for sharing that so openly. The way you speak about embracing vulnerability—as both an artist and a person—is profound. Your openness—to fragility, to fully experiencing life—feels connected to how you move through landscapes of identity and memory.
It brings to mind Cherokee, North Carolina, as a place shaped by layers—deep cultural roots, powerful histories, and a tourism economy that doesn’t always reflect those realities with care. As someone creating work grounded in Indigenous identity and sovereignty, how do you experience that landscape? Do those tensions ever find their way into your thinking or practice?
LH: The contrast between the public, tourist face of Cherokee and the deep cultural community is remarkable. When I was a teenager visiting my grandparents in Cherokee, I was bothered by the kitschy, tourist souvenirs that abound. As I matured, I came to appreciate that tourism dollars had kept many Cherokee families alive and together. In the early twentieth century when the logging industry came into the area, there was little commerce in Cherokee. It was an isolated mountain area where people lived off the land, as they had done for millennia. As the logging industry grew, and the national parks were created, outsiders began to come to the area. Indigenous culture was a novelty and exotic, reinforced by movies and pop culture. An expectation of seeing “Indians” surrounded by stereotyped iconography became the model for local commerce. The kitsch has nothing to do with real Cherokee culture, but it does reflect our history of survival and resilience.
My studio space is a short walk from where I live, just across the river. It’s located on the second floor of a commercial building that has housed souvenir shops for decades. When I’m there working, separated and in solitude, I can observe visitors and locals moving about below me. Although they inhabit the same space, I know their perceptions of that space differ. I’m sure that dichotomy will begin to appear in my work.
AA: In works like Retracing the Trace and Enate, you've explored sovereignty through the lens of the body and matrilineal memory. How are you thinking about individual sovereignty now, in this moment—and how has your understanding evolved through these pieces?
LH: Sovereignty is about the dynamics of power, on every level. I’ve dealt with that topic in several installations in the context of violence against women and from a feminist point of view. Sovereignty, as it relates to Indigenous Nations, is what prompted me to move to the mountains and specifically to live on the Qualla Boundary. My ancestors didn’t leave our homeland in 1838. They resisted the Removal through legal and combative action. At this point in history, when our sovereignty is being threatened in new ways, my living here reinforces and perpetuates Cherokee occupation of this land, as my ancestors did for thousands of years.
Being Cherokee, living in the community and culture, is a privilege. It’s also a responsibility, to contribute to Indigenous survivance (survival + resistance). Our culture holds a different worldview from that of the dominant society, a philosophy that permeates every aspect of life. It’s our duty to take care of each other, and for our government to work for the betterment of the people. All governments could/should do that, but few really practice it. The charge is to serve and protect, not dominate or rule – individually and collectively.
Sovereignty as it relates to personal autonomy for women has prompted my deeper research into sexual assault. I looked beyond the “fact” of sexual assault and began to focus on the “why.” The transition of early societies from hunter-gatherer to agricultural systems was accompanied by the development of patriarchy and the decline of matrilineal systems. Cultures that honor women hold a more equitable view towards everyone. This is evident in contemporary matrilineal cultures, which still exist around the globe, and in matrilineal traditions that prevail within Indigenous communities.
Sovereignty as it relates to personal autonomy for women has prompted my deeper research into sexual assault. I looked beyond the “fact” of sexual assault and began to focus on the “why.” The transition of early societies from hunter-gatherer to agricultural systems was accompanied by the development of patriarchy and the decline of matrilineal systems. Cultures that honor women hold a more equitable view towards everyone. This is evident in contemporary matrilineal cultures, which still exist around the globe, and in matrilineal traditions that prevail within Indigenous communities.
Luzene Hill, Revelate, 2021, Installation/performance/ exterior view (left) and interior view (right), Mylar emergency blankets, heavy weight Mylar, silk organza, Dimensions variable
Photo: Jeffrey Gibson Studio © Luzene Hill
AA: Your use of pre-contact imagery and materials feels deeply tied to that idea. How do you see these references continuing to speak to sovereignty—or even pushing the conversation in new directions?
LH: My interest in pre-contact culture came from images of Machu Pichu in an encyclopedia I saw as a child. I developed a fascination and love for the sculpture, art and philosophy of early empires in the Western Hemisphere. Cherokee myths, written down by anthropologists, had been interpreted through a colonial lens. Indigenous communities on the East Coast were impacted early and continue to be affected five hundred years later. I research pre-contact art to find Indigenous culture that’s uncorrupted by Eurocentric influences.
As my long-standing fascination with early cultures deepened and my research about sexual assault increased, those paths converged. Matrilineal societies were predominant in the Americas prior to 1492. In those societies, women were considered sacred, and, like nature, essential for the survival of the species. There was an egalitarian attitude and respect for all things. People were identified by their talents and character rather than their gender. No one was automatically put into a category or role. Goddess images, circa 3,000 BCE, came to represent matrilineal culture in my work beginning around 2016. I used goddess silhouettes in Enate (2017) and then incorporated small goddess figures in Retribute in 2020. The initial small replicas have become larger. My new goddess figures reference the early ones but are my own interpretation.
AA: Have there been specific pre-contact works or materials you’ve encountered recently that linger with you? What about them resonates?
LH: Almost all pre-contact sculpture resonates with me in its sophistication and elegance. I find it astounding. When talking about cave drawings, Wendy Beckett said, “art has changed since then, but it hasn’t gotten better.” I completely agree. Any idea that primitive art is less valuable, nuanced, or complex, is primitive thinking.
I recently discovered the Inka tupu, which is an ornament used to secure a shawl. It denotes the wearer’s status and their connection to the universe. I came across images of these beautiful objects as I was working on a new, larger goddess sculpture. The grace and craftsmanship the tupu displayed was striking. I was enamored to the point of incorporating that motif into the new sculpture, as well as into the entire installation, pleasure in being limitless (2025), at Hannah Traore Gallery in New York City.
AA: And finally—what’s on your mind creatively right now? What are you working on, and how is it connecting to—or breaking away from—your recent projects?
LH: I’m making images that express female sexuality in a more uninhibited and celebratory way. That may not seem revolutionary, but for me it’s remarkable and long overdue. When I began focusing on violence against women around 2008, I became restrained about some of my figurative drawings that could be read as erotic, although prior to 2008, I had made a series of drawings about birthing and conception. My reluctance to express female sexuality in my work reflects a patriarchal construct related to “victim blaming” and “cherchez la femme” – dating back to Eve and Lilith. It’s ironic that the patriarchal tenets I have railed against in my work were inhibiting me from what I instinctively wanted to do – was doing, but not showing. My reluctance to express female sexuality in my work was playing to that domination! It took me a while to come around to that realization, and even when I did, I continued to hold back - until recently. I asserted this idea when I made Now that the gates of hell are closed . . . in 2019, and more boldly when it was mounted in 2022 at The Atlanta Contemporary. With my current installation, “pleasure in being limitless” I’ve pushed further. Reveling in female sexuality is a counternarrative to male dictated hierarchies. “Limitless” has a broader meaning to me right now, not just about sexuality, but about what I feel free to express.
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Luzene Hill is a multidisciplinary artist, best known for immersive installations and performance collaborations. Through work informed by precontact culture of the Americas, Hill advocates for Indigenous sovereignty - linguistic, cultural and individual sovereignty. Employing early autochthonous motifs she asserts female power and sexuality to challenge colonial patriarchy.
An enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Hill divides her time between Atlanta and the Qualla Boundary in Cherokee, NC. She has exhibited throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Russia, Japan and the United Kingdom. Awards include: Ucross Fellowship, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellowship, Eiteljorg Museum Fellowship and First Peoples Fund Fellowship. Recent residencies: IAIA MoCNA Social Engagement Residency; Anderson Ranch Arts Center; Township 10 Residency; and George Stuart Resident Scholar at Boundary End Research Center. Hill's work is featured in Jeffrey Gibson’s book, “An Indigenous Present,” “Gender Violence, Art and the Viewer,” edited by S. Caldwell, “Art, Activism and Sexual Violence," edited by S. Kitch and Gilpin, and the PBS Documentary, “Native Art NOW!”
Luzene Hill
Photo: Roshni Gorur
Anderson Ranch Art Center 2020
Andrew Alexander is an Atlanta-based writer whose work has been featured in publications such as Art Papers, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Creative Loafing, Bomb, and ArtsATL. He covers visual art, classical music, opera, theater, and dance.
Andrew Alexander