Jess T. Dugan: I Want You to Know My Story by [CONTAINER] Turner Carroll

JESS T. DUGAN

I WANT YOU TO KNOW MY STORY

Jess T. Dugan, portrait of the artist Photo Credit: Bryan Birks

Design: Brian Bixby

Artist Statement

My creative practice centers around an exploration of identity through photography, video, and writing. Drawing from my experience as a queer, nonbinary person, my work is motivated by an existential need to understand and express myself and to connect with others. My series of photographs, Look at me like you love me, is a meditative reflection on desire, intimacy, companionship, and the ways our identities are shaped by these experiences. This series includes selfportraits, portraits of individuals and couples, and still lifes, interwoven with diaristic writings reflecting on relationships, solitude, family, loss, healing, and the transformations that define a life. I work slowly and collaboratively in pursuit of images that transcend the specifics of a particular person or place, engaging with what it means to know oneself alongside and through others. Using medium-format cameras and natural lighting, I employ traditional photographic practices to depict these contemporary subjects, resulting in images that both evoke and reimagine the conventional dynamics of art-historical portraiture. My photographs function as an extended, oblique self-portrait as much as a catalogue of friends and loved ones. Look at me like you love me brings our attention to one of the most powerful and complex forms of intimacy—that of seeing and being seen. My autobiographical video, Letter to my Daughter, is directed to my five-year-old daughter Elinor and centers around my experience with parenthood throughout the first five years of her life. It is in dialogue with my 2017 video, Letter to my Father, which explores my estranged relationship with my father, as well as Family Pictures (2012-present), my long-term series of photographs focusing on three generations of my family. Letter to my Daughter is comprised of an audio soundtrack of my voice reading a letter to Elinor, and the images include personal snapshots, ephemera such as ultrasound images, and photographs from Family Pictures. The letter is highly personal and addresses a variety of topics, including my expectations around parenthood, the long and circuitous journey of trying to have a child with both known and anonymous sperm donors, the experience of miscarriage, and my adjustment to parenthood as a queer and nonbinary person. Perhaps most importantly, it tries to put into words the intensity of love between a parent and child as well as the significant personal growth parenthood both inspires and requires. While there is a notable precedent for work about family throughout art history, representations of queer families and queer parenting are rare, especially representations of butch or transmasculine parenting. I want to address that gap by making work about my own family and telling our personal story. Jess T. Dugan

SELECTED COLLECTIONS 21c Museums. Various Locations, United States. Addison Gallery of American Art. Andover, MA Akron Art Museum. Akron, OH Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. Little Rock, AR Asheville Art Museum. Asheville, NC Birmingham Museum of Art. Birmingham, AL Block Museum of Art, Northwestern College. Evanston, IL Colby College Museum of Art. Waterville, ME Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College. Winter Park, FL Davis Museum, Wellesley College. Wellesley, MA DePaul Art Museum. Chicago, IL Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. Saratoga Springs, NY George Eastman Museum. Rochester, NY Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, CA Grand Rapids Art Museum. Grand Rapids, MI Gregory Allicar Museum of Art at Colorado State University. Fort Collins, CO Harvard Art Museums. Cambridge, MA Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. Hanover, NH International Center of Photography. New York, NY Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University. Stanford, CA Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Champaign, IL Leslie/Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. New York, NY Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University. St. Louis, MO Minneapolis Institute of Art. Minneapolis, MN MIT List Visual Arts Center. Cambridge, MA Museum of Contemporary Photography. Chicago, IL Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, MA Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Houston, TX National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, D.C. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Kansas City, MO Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. Overland Park, KS Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University. New Orleans, LA Norton Museum of Art. West Palm Beach, FL Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University. Miami, FL Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Provincetown, MA RISD Museum of Art. Providence, RI San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. San Francisco, CA Smith College Museum of Art. Northampton, MA St. Louis Art Museum. St. Louis, MO University of Michigan Museum of Art. Ann Arbor, MI University of New Mexico Art Museum. Albuquerque, NM Windgate Museum of Art, Hendrix College. Conway, AR 4

I want to tell you things; I want you to know my story. There is so much I can’t say in my photographs, though it’s all there, just below the surface, if you know what to look for.

Self-portrait (blue room), 2021 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Early morning light, Boston, 2020 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Dario, 2022 Pigment print 45 x 60”, ed. 1/3

Oskar and Zach (embrace), 2020 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 2/5

Wisteria, 2021 Pigment print 18 x 24”, ed. 1/10

Enrique, 2023 Pigment print 45 x 60”, ed. 1/3

Collin at Sunset, 2020 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed 1/5

Cai, 2019 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Shira (hot tub), 2020 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Self-portrait with Vanessa, 2020 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Jo at sunset, 2020 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Collin (red room), 2020 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Red Tulips, 2020 Pigment print 18 x 24”, ed. 1/10

Kalven at sunset, 2021 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Candles, 2020 Pigment print 18 x 24”, ed. 1/10

Oskar at sunset, 2019 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

JD and Steve, 2020 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Window at sunrise, 2021 Pigment print 18 x 24”, ed. 1/10

Shira and Sarah, 2020 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 1/5

Mary, 2021 Pigment print 18 x 24”, ed. 1/10

Self-portrait (reaching), 2021 Pigment print 30 x 40”, ed. 4/5

Jess T. Dugan EDUCATION 2014

Master of Fine Arts in Photography, Columbia College Chicago

2010

Master of Liberal Arts in Museum Studies, Harvard University

2007

Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography, Massachusetts College of Art and Design SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023

Jess T. Dugan: I want you to know my story, [CONTAINER]. Santa Fe, NM Jess T. Dugan: Look at me like you love me, Spazio Labo. Bologna, Italy Letter to My Father, Robert and Elaine Stein Galleries, Wright State University. Dayton, OH Every Breath We Drew, Windgate Museum of Art at Hendrix College. Conway, AR

2022

Jess T. Dugan: Look at me like you love me, CLAMP. New York, NY To Survive on This Shore, SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport. San Francisco, CA Jess T. Dugan: Look at me like you love me, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. Overland Park, KS Look at me like you love me, Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival. Atlanta, GA Jess T. Dugan: I want you to know my story, University Galleries at Illinois State University. Normal, IL Look at me like you love me, PHOTO 2022 International Festival of Photography. Melbourne, Australia Jess T. Dugan: Seen, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. Summit, NJ To Survive on This Shore, Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University. New Orleans, LA To Survive on This Shore, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University. Portland, OR

2021

Currents 120: Jess T. Dugan, St. Louis Art Museum. St. Louis, MO To Survive on This Shore, George Eastman Museum. Rochester, NY To Survive on This Shore, Photo Center Northwest. Seattle, WA Letter to My Father, INDEX Gallery, University of Dayton. Dayton, OH

2020

Vision 2020: Jess T. Dugan, Minneapolis Institute of Art. Minneapolis, MN Every Breath We Drew, Truman State University. Kirksville, MO

2019

To Survive on This Shore, University of New Mexico Art Museum. Albuquerque, NM To Survive on This Shore, Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Provincetown, MA To Survive on This Shore, The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University. Miami, FL To Survive on This Shore, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art at Colorado State University. Fort Collins, CO Every Breath We Drew, Grunwald Gallery, Indiana University. Bloomington, IN Every Breath We Drew, Montserrat College of Art. Beverly, MA To Survive on This Shore, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library Photography Gallery, Duke University. Durham, NC

2018

To Survive on This Shore, projects+gallery. St. Louis, MO Every Breath We Drew, Transformer Station. Cleveland, OH

Letter to My Daughter, 2023 Video, 16 minutes