Lauren Grabelle
Deer Diary
Jan 8 - 31 , 2026
Deer Diary is a continuation of my searching for that place where fine art, documentary, and wildlife photography meet in the Montana landscape. Turning my attention from predators to prey to make these spiritual self-portraits, I chose a trail camera as my portal: the deer themselves became my collaborators by their diurnal and nocturnal movements through the landscape. Setting up the trail cam in places where their movements are already written into the earth via game trails and bent fence lines, I am able to capture these neighbors and creatures as they traverse the landscape and tell their own story — a story told in art, mythology, religion, and literature, on almost all the world’s continents since Paleolithic times.
In-Person Artist Talk
Sat, Jan 10, 3:30 PM
Lauren Grabelle (American, b. 1965, she/her) is an award-winning editorial and fine art photographer, and is known for her imagery celebrating the people, animals (both wild and domestic), and the incredible landscapes of Montana. Her work falls in the matrix where fine art and documentary meet and has been included in exhibitions in galleries and museums across the US and Europe, in two Montana Triennials, at Gulf Photo Plus in Dubai, and most recently in a solo show at the Missoula Art Museum of her work, Deer Diary. In 2021 her series, The Last Man, was recognized by LensCulture as a winner in the international photo competition HOME '21, and then in 2022 as a Critical Mass TOP 50 winner. In 2022, as one of only 12 living photographers, Ken Burns included her photo, Tommy In His Car, in his book Our America: A Photographic History. Other projects and assignments have been featured in print and online in Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, High Country News, Noema, Humble Arts Foundation, Der Grief, Lenscratch, and many others, as well as awarded inclusion in American Photography volumes 10, 17, 36, 39, & 41. She has also spent 12 days alone with her dog in the Great Bear Wilderness as part of an artist residency sponsored by the Glacier Art Museum, the Flathead National Forest, and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation. Lauren is an Adobe Stock Premium contributor and a member of the international organization Women Photograph.