Born 1961 Kansas City, MO; resides in Seattle

Wheeler was born in 1961 in Kansas City, MO and raised in Ralston, Nebraska, a suburb of Omaha. Wheeler came to the Northwest (via California) as a young adult. She gravitated to Seattle in 1981 and then Olympia in 1985 for higher education as a painter and then, almost by chance, as a photographer. When Wheeler left Evergreen State College with a BA degree in 1988, she began a serious career as a photographer with an exhibit at the Mazey Hickey Gallery in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle. Wheeler has shown numerous times at various Seattle galleries since then, and, most notably, in a group show entitled “Hereabouts,” curated by Trevor Fairbrother, at the Seattle Art Museum. Her work is in the public collections of The Henry Gallery at the University of Washington, and The Experience Music Project.

Wheeler’s photographs have been published in news magazines such as Newsweek, Time, and Life as well as music magazines such as Rolling Stone, Mojo or Spin and alternative lifestyle journals such as Out. Wheeler’s photographs have illustrated various books covering the Seattle rock scene, such as Rolling Stone’s Women in Rock (1998). She was featured in Nick Broomfield’s controversial documentary film “Kurt and Courtney.” Several of Wheeler’s photographs are included in Heavier Than Heaven, the best selling biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles Cross.

OUTCASTS AND INNOCENTS: Photographs of the Northwest
by Alice Wheeler

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