Jocelyn Lee
Jocelyn Lee
Born: 1962 Naples Italy
Biography and Information
Jocelyn Lee creates photographs of ephemera and figures that are reminiscent of seventeenth-century Dutch painting.Lee uses dramatic lighting to enhance the cinematic quality of herphotographs. The stillness of each image is reflective of her slowand meditative process, and her photographs of women and girlsare mysterious and intimate. Each portrait reveals the subject’svulnerability through body language and nudity.
Jocelyn Lee received her BA in philosophy and visual arts from Yale University and her MFA in photography from Hunter College. Lee’s work has been included in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and Harper’s Magazine. Her work is in notable collections including the Yale Museum of Art; the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; the Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She has received several awards and grants including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a NYFA Fellowship. Born in Naples, Italy, Lee currently lives and works in Portland, ME.
The world enters our body via sensual portals: eyes, nose, ears, skin, and nervous system. It is then translated by our brains intomeaning and experience. The Appearance of Things attempts toaccess this tactile and optical experience and explores how we areenmeshed in an embodied and ephemeral world. All life, includingour human form and being, passes through stages of birth,blossoming, and death.Each image strives to celebrate a multitude of sensual bodies:animals, plants, and human beings. In many ways, the photographsare cabinets of wonder, echoing a nineteenth-century naturalscience fascination with the diversity of life.
—Jocelyn Lee
Education
City University of New York at Hunter College, M.F.A.
Yale University, B.A. Studio art and Philosophy
Exhibitions
2020
2020 Vision, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
2019
Flux, Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME
Yummy Yummy, Flatland Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
2018
The Appearance of Things, Huxley-Parlour, London, England (Solo)
The Appearance of Things, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME (Solo)
Lived Space, Architecture and Humans, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA
2017
Last Light, complete room-sized installation, The Karachi Biennial, Karachi, Pakistan
Reconsidering Adolescence, The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine
Summer Show, Pace MacGill Gallery, NY, NY
Converging to Center-Photographs from the Collection of Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, Wesleyan University
HE/SHE/THEY, Rose Gallery, L.A.
2014
About Face – Contemporary Portraiture, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Hunting, Flatland Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Insights, The Print Space, London, England
2013
The Kids are All Right, John Michael Kohler Arts Centre, Sheboygan, WI
2013
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship recipient
Piecework, The PMA Biennial, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Biennial Purchase Prize, The Portland Museum of Art
Dark Blue: Water as Protagonist, The Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI
2012
Jocelyn Lee, Solo Show, Flatland Gallery, Paris, France
2010
Jocelyn Lee, Nowhere but here, Pace MacGill Gallery, NY, NY
2008
Jocelyn Lee, Last Light, University of Southern Maine, Gorham, ME
Jocelyn Lee, Feature Photography, The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Jocelyn Lee, Last Light, University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME
2007
Jocelyn Lee, Grounded, Pace MacGill Gallery, NY, NY (Solo)
Jocelyn Lee, Children’s Games, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport,ME (Solo)
Presumed Innocent, Photographs of Children, The DeCordova Museum of Art, Waltham, MA
2006
Jocelyn Lee, Youth, (solo) The University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME
2005
Made in the Shade, Pace MacGill Gallery, NY, NY
She Is—Perceptions of Female Identity, Stonehill College, Easton, MA
New Work: Jocelyn Lee and Sa Schloff, Zero Station, Portland, ME
Sportsman Redux, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, ME
2004
New Aquisitions: The Global and the Local, Bates College Museum of Art Lewistion, ME
Sites Unseen, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
Standing Figure, The Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA
Maine in America, Images from the Permanent Collection, Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME
2003
Jocelyn Lee: Portraits, The Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA (Solo)
Jocelyn Lee: New Work, The University of Maine at Farmington (Solo)
“Swim Suits and Sports”, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Undomesticated Interiors, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA.
Selections from the Bruce Brown Collection, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
6 From Maine, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA
Taking Pictures, ICON Contemporary Art, Brunswick, ME
2002
Preview/Review: Recent Work by David Hilliard, Jocelyn Lee, Abelardo
Morell, Deborah Bright, Virginia Beahan and Laura McPhee, Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA
5 Fictions, Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA
Genetic Imprints, DNA Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Recent Acquisitions, Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME
2001
Jocelyn Lee: New Work, LFL Gallery, NY, NY (Solo)
Local Color, The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Summer Show, DNA Gallery, Provincetown, MA
2000
The Lois Foster Exhibition of Boston Area Artists, The Rose Art Museum,
Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Undoing Motherhood, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
Photographing Maine 1840-2000, Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, ME
New Beauty–A Girl’s Story, Maine Photo Co-op, Portland, ME. (Solo)
1999
Recent Developments, Silverstein Gallery, NY, NY
Still, Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, ME. (Solo)
1997
The Youngest Parents, national traveling exhibition, The Center for
Documentary Studies at Duke University, Durham, NC. (2 solo shows)
The Youngest Parents, The National Humanities Center, Chapel Hill, N.C.
1996
4 Photographers, Icon Contemporary Art, Brunswick, ME
Backyard, The Dead Space Gallery, Portland, ME (Solo)
The Bates Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME
Collections
The Agnes Gund Collection
The Bates Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME
The Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Durham, N.C.
The Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, ME
The List Center at MIT, Boston, MA
Maison Européen de la Photographie, Paris, France
The Martin Z. Margulies Collection
The Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI
The Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
The Yale Museum of Art, New Haven, CT
Awards
2014
Purchase Prize, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
2013
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, NY, NY
2003
International Association of Arts Critics/USA, Award for Best Emerging Artist Exhibition in New England
2001
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
2000/2002
The MacDowell Colony, Residency in Peterborough, NH
The Banff Center for the Arts, Residency in Banff, Alberta, Canada.
1993
Texas Photographic Society Production Grant, Austin, TX.
Press
2020
The Small Blessing of Being Seen, Katy Kelleher, Maine The Magazine, June
2019
Art review, Dan Kany, Portland Press Herald, June 16
Jocelyn Lee, Kyra Schmidt, Ain’t Bad, March 28
Jocelyn Lee Portraits of Women and Girls, I love you magazine, Berlin, Germany
Untitled image featured in Art Section of The Women’s Issue, The Harvard Advocate, Spring 2019
2018
Jocelyn Lee’s Painterly Portraits of Nudes Immersed in Nature, Photo Booth feature, June 15
Jocelyn Lee – The Appearance of Things, The Eye of Photography, July
Jocelyn Lee: The Appearance of Things, fisheye, June
Transient Moments, Aesthetica Magazine, 11 April
The Unclothed Body is Our Primary Vessel” : Photographing Vulnerability, Miss Rosen, AnOther Magazine. April 20
Maine’s Mini-Mecca: Contemporary on the Coast, Greg Morell, artscope Magazine, July 5
Jocelyn Lee’s first UK solo exhibition surveys the Appearance of Things, Lucy Bourton, It’s Nice That, 19 April
Jocelyn Lee Explores the Cycle of Life in Photography Exhibition in Rockland, Bob Keyes, Maine Today (Portland Press Herald), June 18
10 Must-See Artists at AIPAD’s Photography Show, Artsy, April 5
Photo London Top 5, Lee Sharrock, FAD Magazine, May 17
Features section, DownEast Magazine, June
The Appearance of Things: vita e more nelle foto di Jocelyn Lee, Claudia Fuggetti, Collater.al, 25 July
Jocelyn Lee Captures The Appearance of Things, Rosie Flanagan, ignant, July 23
Art Review, Dan Kany, Portland Press Herald, July 15
The Body Now, Thames and Hudson, Edited by Nathalie Herschdorfer
2013
Jocelyn Lee: Women are Beautiful, Photo Raw, Helsinki, Finland
2012
Creatures, Text by Marisa Silver, The New Yorker, December 2012
Jocelyn Lee: Naakt is kwetsbaar is schoon, Text by Leslie Van Hecke, Snoeks
Fotograftaki Kadin!, Photographs by Jocelyn Lee, Genc., May 2012
2011
Nowhere but here, Monograph, Steidl Publishing
2008
Presumed Innocent, The DeCordova Museum.
2007
Review of Grounded, Pace MacGill Gallery, The New Yorker, May
2005
Review of Made in the Shade at Pace MacGill Gallery, The New Yorker, August
2003
The Power of Paper, review of show at Bernard Toale Gallery, The Boston Phoenix, June 5
2001
Jocelyn Lee, review of LFL Gallery Show, The New Yorker, May 7
Jocelyn Lee, review, The Village Voice, Voice Choices, May 8.
Local Color: 6 Maine Photographers show contemporary work at PMA, Antiques and the Arts Weekly, February
Local Color, Maine Sunday Telegram, April 1
2000
Artists explore transformations, real and implied, review of the exhibition at The Rose Art Museum, The Boston Globe, December
The Youngest Parents, Paperback publication, W.W. Norton and Co. and DoubleTake Books
Photographing Maine 1840-2000, catalogue and CD-ROM, Center for Maine, Contemporary Art, Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, Maine
1998
The Youngest Parents, Review, The New York Times Literary Supplement, March
1997
The Youngest Parents, Text by Robert Coles, Photographs by Jocelyn Lee and John Moses. W.W. Norton and Co. and DoubleTake Books
The Today Show, interview with Robert Coles and presentation of photographs from The Youngest Parents, July 1
The Youngest Parents, photographs by Jocelyn Lee and John Moses. Durham, North Carolina. DoubleTake magazine, Issue # 7. Pages 31-40
Review of The Youngest Parents, Publishers Weekly, February 10
Review of The Youngest Parents, The Boston Phoenix, June
Review of The Youngest Parents, “Briefly Noted,” The New Yorker, September
How it Goes for Some Folks, Review, The New Leader, September
Photograph from The Youngest Parents, The Wilson Journal, The
Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.
Un Siècle de Liens Amoureux Aimer, photograph from The Youngest
Parents, Editions du Chene, Paris, France
1996
Four Photographers, review of exhibition at Icon
Contemporary Art, Art New England, Winter Issue
Press Release
2020
2020 Vision at Richard Levy Gallery