Zoey Meek is a photographer and multidisciplinary artist from Eastern Kentucky. Her Appalachian upbringing shaped her interest in the overlooked, strange, and intimate, as well as her resourceful approach to making images outside traditional institutions.
Meek’s photographic practice explores desire, subculture, femininity, class, eroticism, impermanence, and the tension between attraction and discomfort. Taking a voyeuristic approach, she observes intimate moments, overlooked details, and the visual language of everyday life with curiosity. Her images move between documentation and fiction, often feeling like fragments from a larger, partially imagined world.
Working with a sensitivity to atmosphere, gesture, and imperfection, Meek creates photographs that are personal, sensual, and occasionally confrontational. Her images capture fleeting encounters and unstable environments, preserving the feeling of something that existed briefly and could disappear at any moment.
Hi Zoey! It’s a pleasure to sit down wot you! First question that I always ask. How does a regular day look like for you in Kentucky?
Zoey: I moved out of Kentucky a few years ago, I now live in Miami. However, life in Kentucky is very slow so most of my time was spent going to school and coming home to help my dad with farm animals. I wasn’t really allowed to go out for a large part of my childhood, so I would spend a lot of time in my room, drawing and watching documentaries on people I felt inspired by.
I’m curious, growing up, what kind of kid were you? What did you enjoy doing, and how did you spend your time?
Zoey: I wouldn’t say I was shy but definitely introverted, playing by myself, always curating dolls and toys to make a scene I liked, after that I would just keep them in place. I would come up with a story in my head as to how they all got to their respected places but wouldn’t allow myself to move them or bring any life to them.
So how did you get introduced to photography? And how did you first start out practicing with your camera?
Zoey: My great grandmother would sort of hoard things, she had every photo of every event that she had ever been to, I was so fascinated with how I felt like I was a part of the stories she would tell me through the images. For practicing photography my mother had a very nice Nikon she hid at the top of her closet, and when she was at work I would take it out after school and take pictures of my friends. I also would save up money to buy disposable cameras because I liked the idea of being able to have a hard copy of memories.
Alright, so what made you want to start documenting people and the environments around them?
Zoey: It was only the last two years of high school (when I moved in with my mother) that I was allowed to go outside and hang out with friends, I think I became very interested in remembering every little moment I got to experience, trying to freeze everything in time.
How important is authenticity in your work? And can a picture still be good, if it does’t have any?
Zoey: I think authenticity is relative, as much as I enjoy documenting things I also enjoy storytelling and fantasy. Both need to exist among each other.
What makes photography your preferred medium of expressing yourself?
Zoey: Photography gets me out of my head, it makes me preset in the current moment.
You’ve described being drawn to the overlooked, strange and intimate. What is it about those topics that resonate with you?
Zoey: Honestly, I think I’m draw to those themes in a selfish regard. A lot of my life I felt very overlooked and outcasted so I think it’s a way for me to call attention to those that maybe get lost in the sea of what is palatable.
Class appears throughout your work, sometimes very subtly. Was class something you consciously wanted to photograph, or did you realize later that it had been present in your images all along?
Zoey: I think at first I was conscious of class in the way of trying to conceal my circumstances, a way for me to imagine more for myself. Then it became less conscious, I wanted to have a way to hold onto things in their most authentic form.
There’s often a voyeuristic quality to your photographs. What attracts you to the position of the observer rather than the participant?
Zoey: It’s a disruption. A participant becomes a variable. And I’m at a point in time where I’m very grateful to experience many different people and walks of life. A lot of those things aren’t meant for me to be an active participant in.
A lot of your images seem to sit somewhere between seduction and unease. Are you interested in beauty precisely because it can make something uncomfortable easier to look at?
Zoey: Yes, beauty creates a buffer. It holds attention, it creates conversation. If something was simply just unsettling, often times it would just be disregarded, at the same time if it was only beautiful it would make complexity.
There is a fragmentary quality to your work, as though we’ve arrived halfway through something and will never know the beginning or the end. Are you consciously withholding information from the viewer?
Zoey: I think unintentionally I can without somethings that create shame. Things I’m embarrassed of, and the same time i force myself to confront them in other works.
You work across photography and other disciplines. What can you express outside photography that the camera won’t let you express?
Zoey: Photography is what I see, writing is how I feel. It’s very internal. I shift from the viewer into the vessel.
What kind of environments attract you?
Zoey: Anything polarizing.
Do you want your photographs to be understood, or is misunderstanding sometimes more interesting?
Zoey: I don’t think it’s up to me to control how a viewer interprets or interacts with my work. I’m a bit of a contrarian, so often times it’s very gratifying when someone disagrees with me or challenges why I am doing something.
Ok Zoey, now to something totally different. In a parallel universe who would you be? and what would you be doing?
Zoey: I think I would be a mortician, I almost went to school for it. I’m very interested in the idea of preserving and honoring something.
Outside of photography, what’s something you’re obsessed with right now, maybe a hobby, a show, or even a food, that keeps you grounded or inspired?
Zoey: Leather working as been so much fun to me, I enjoy the pressure and preciseness required in the practice.
Can you tell me a story about a time when a connection with someone had a big impact on you?
Zoey: I’m a very impractically sensitive person. I like things to impact me, I enjoy theatrics.
Anybody you look up to?
Zoey: McQueen. I enjoy his way of story telling through clothes. I think he is a huge inspiration for how I photograph things.
Alright Zoey, I always ask this questions at the end of an interview. What’s your favorite movie(s) and why?
Zoey: The last unicorn is a childhood favorite. It was my aunt and mother’s favorite movie as well. It’s whimsical and complex. Secretary is also a favorite. It’s devoted. Between the characters you see the mental connection as well. It’s not just a sexy movie, it shows why we crave the things we do.