Chelsea Kaiah James

Chelsea Kaiah (b. 1995) is Ute and Apache/ Irish settler, born on the Northern Ute reservation. As an artist she currently resides in Denver Colorado. She is a passionate activist for Native rights, awareness, and sustainability. Chelsea earned her BFA at Watkins College of Art and Design in Nashville Tennessee.

Today, she learns traditional practices of pine needle weaving, beading, porcupine quilling, buffalo hunting, and hide work, incorporating her interdisciplinary skills to meld a perspective of culture and artistic practice.

For Kaiah, storytelling has always been an integral part of her up-bringing. Storytelling is a connection to her relations, community, past, and hopes for future. Even objects (hide bags) that just carry belongings become cultural carriers that bring knowledge by creation, and carriers of visual storytelling.

By adapting traditional materials and techniques to engage a mindful space for honoring subjects that discuss resilience, mental health, system reformation, and means of healing, traditional work becomes more than tradition—it becomes cultural experience.

Chelsea presents human forms often masked to have ambiguity if it’s her world, their world, or for viewers to reflect themselves in our world. She believes reflecting the human condition is an important connection to reignite nature-based relationships between cultural and physical environments.