Advocating through Art for the Wellbeing of Our Planet

Before she came to college, Zoe Turner thought she might want to study marine biology. But “I’ve been drawing and doing theater since I was a small child,” she says, so she chose an art major with minors in theatre and art history. 

Her passion for the ocean never waned, though, and she has found ways to explore the seas through her art.

“A lot of my work is involved with marine conservation and environmentalism,” she says.

Zoe’s senior thesis project, “Converse to Conserve,” is a case in point. In a series of acrylic paintings and film photography pieces, her work presents “current and future realities concerning the North Carolina coastline,” her artist statement explains, and is intended to “inspire critical opinions on the fate of our coastlines.”

Zoe Turner with her senior thesis
Zoe Turner’s BFA senior thesis project addresses marine conservation issues through both photography and painting.

In preparation for the project, Zoe studied the environmental challenges along North Carolina’s coast. “I love doing research. I literally filled up an entire notebook.” She then created a body of work that visualizes her research in surrealist ways.

“One painting is a take on lionfish,” she says. “They’re an invasive species, and they’ve kind of taken over our coast, and they don’t have any predators because they’re not native to here, and they’re venomous. So I made a bunch of different species that are native to North Carolina and I dressed them up like lionfish, basically.”

paintings from Zoe Turner's senior thesis
Zoe Turner’s surrealist paintings in her senior thesis project, “Converse to Conserve.” Top, middle: N.C. Native marine life “dressed” as the invasive lionfish.

Zoe was the recipient this year of the Roderick MacKillop Memorial Art Merit Scholarship, established by the family of former painting professor Rod MacKillop.

“It has been really, really just a big blessing. I was going to be struggling to support myself for this last semester. So it was really nice to not have to worry. And it was also really nice to be recognized for painting. I guess everyone, especially artists, always deals with imposter syndrome. But this was like, ‘Your work’s nice, your work is scholarship worthy.’”

Zoe will actually graduate with a concentration in photography, a medium she “fell in love with” later in her UNC Charlotte career. She highlights photography faculty Aspen Hochhalter and Ann Kluttz as being particularly important to her final year, advising her through both her Honors thesis, the photography exhibition “(in)Visible,” and the “Converse to Conserve” project.

“They’ve just both been incredible supports for me.”

Zoe Turn.er with the photos of her Honors thesis
Zoe Turner’s Honors thesis, “(in)Visible,” and her project “Parts of the Whole ; My American Redbud Tree” were featured in an exhibition at Goodyear Arts in February 2024.

She also has high praise for Jill Bloede, a lecturer in the theatre department, who has taught several classes in her theatre minor. Although Zoe has not performed in a Department of Theatre production, she regularly performs in musicals in Gaston County, where she grew up.

Zoe Turner in a production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Zoe Turner, far right, in a recent production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” at Gastonia’s FUMC Theatre.

As she graduates, Zoe is looking ahead to graduate school and hopes to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in photography. At the moment, she has her eye on UNC Chapel Hill, which also has a strong marine science program. She may even get that marine biology degree after all.

“I had two resource advisors (for her senior project) that were grad students at Chapel Hill in the marine biology program, who guided my research, so I think it would be really nice to actually go there and be able to get more hands-on access that department for my art.”