“This has become a lifelong, soul-filling, allegorical odyssey to understand my own identity, intuition and sense of place." Russel Albert Daniels says. Photo: Lily Rutherford
Russel Albert Daniels describes his family’s history as a blend of early Mormon settlers and Native Americans. His parents were born and raised on a Ute reservation, although he admits they were more Ute by culture than by blood.
Today, Daniels is a multidisciplinary photographer and artist based in Salt Lake City. He specializes in documentary photography and storytelling with the aim of bringing visibility to Native American communities throughout the American West. His newest exhibition, “Wild Roses,” was inspired by his experiences in these communities.
His photos have been shown at the Library of Congress, Utah Museum of Fine Art, National Museum of the American Indian and in publications such as National Geographic, The New York Times, Mother Jones and more.
“When I look at the history of my family, I can just see what happened here in the West,” says Daniels. One of his ancestors, a Diné woman, was taken by the Ute people in the mid-1800s and sold to a polygamist Mormon settler. Her name was Rose Daniels.
Daniels’ Diné ancestor, Rose Daniels, has inspired much of his work. Photo: Lily Rutherford.
“I didn’t know there was Native American slavery in Utah, [but] it was expansive.”
As a high school student, Daniels spent his time in the photography dark room. He kept sketchbooks filled with drawings and often wrote in diaries. Looking back, he realizes he was always inherently an artist. Pursuing a career in photography seemed nearly impossible in the ‘90s due to the money and equipment required, but Daniels persevered. Eventually, he moved from fine art prints to documentary photography and graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Montana.
It was around this time he began researching his family history and stumbled upon a box full of newspaper clippings and black-and-white photographs of Rose Daniels. “Rose was always in the back of my mind. I didn’t know there was Native American slavery in Utah, [but] it was expansive,” says Daniels.
Learning about his past fueled Daniels’ imagination and desire to tell stories he deemed important—not just stories about his family, but also those of a wider indigenous population in the 1800s and 1900s, especially in Utah. Currently, he’s working on a five-year project centered on Indigenous enslavement in the Southwest.
“There’s a lot of things that happened here, a lot of erasure of native people,” he says. “So many people don’t realize that on this land, there were Shoshone, Ute, Goshute, Paiute, even the Navajo.”
Daniels’ exhibition, “Wild Roses,” is a confluence of his past, identity and place. The exhibition includes photographic pieces in line with his previous work: wild horses, rock formations and desert Pueblo scenes. But where Daniels really shines is in his abstract and rarely seen black ink drawings, a body of work he’s been quietly developing for the past four years.
As he’s traveled through Native communities across different states, the weight and privilege of entering a new world is deeply personal for Daniels. Many of the places he visits are in rural areas, where he sits on dirt floors, gets water from wells and lives among ancient adobe structures. In many ways, stepping onto a reservation feels like stepping through a time portal.
“I ask my ancestors questions that I know have no answer. They tell me to breathe, and that the journey is the answer and reward.”
Daniels practices multiple forms of art in addition to photography, his abstract drawings are a portal into his inner psyche. Photo: Lily Rutherford.
Daniels takes his time when photographing a subject, aware of his privilege and responsibility to the subject. He meditates and follows his intuition while trying not to think too much.
Ultimately, when drawing, he wants to create something unique to him and the things he’s seen. The drawings aren’t logical and could be hard to recognize from their abstract shapes and patterns. However, after understanding Daniels’ background, clear themes emerge. Wagons, demons, medicinal plants: symbols of Indigenous enslavement and trauma.
Ultimately, each of Daniels’ drawings is a portal in itself to experience a buried Indigenous narrative. “This has become a lifelong, soul-filling, allegorical odyssey to understand my own identity, intuition and sense of place. I ask my ancestors questions that I know have no answer. They tell me to breathe, and that the journey is the answer and reward,” wrote Daniels in an artist statement.
“Wild Roses” will be on display at Material Art Gallery in Salt Lake City through November 8, with a gallery stroll on October 18 from 6–8 p.m. Find information about the exhibition at materialartgallery.com and view more of Daniels’ previous and ongoing work at russeldaniels.com.
