Jesse Ly
Photography, Sculpture
Jesse Ly is an Asian-American photographic and image-based artist. They hold a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with a minor in Art History and a certificate in Critical Visions from the University of Cincinnati’s college of DAAP. They currently are the Graphic Design and Photography Media Facilities Coordinator for Art & Design at the University of Dayton.
They have exhibited work both nationally across the US and internationally. They have had solo exhibitions at spaces including RoyGBiv Gallery - Columbus, OH, Foster Gallery - Dedham, MA, The Neon Heater - Findlay, OH and Gallery Photoland - Olympia, WA. As well had notable group exhibitions at spaces such as The Contemporary Arts Center - Cincinnati, OH, FotoFilmic - Vancouver, BC, The PH Museum - Bologna, Italy among others. They have been a recipient of CultureWorks Artist Opportunity Grants, an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, a Regional Artist Renewal Grant via the National Endowment for the Arts, and was named a finalist for the Aperture Portfolio Prize in 2023. Â
Jesse Ly uses photographic approaches that incorporates processes of sculpture, bookmaking, and writing to inform and expand imagery. Their work navigates identity structures through representation and comprehension by considering the transitional qualities of existence found within imagery and their adornments. They use this mode of looking to examine how photographic depictions incite differentiation in presence and portrayal through presented context and actuality.
These concerns surface typically via self-analyzation, fixating on how Ly, those they have immediate discursive relationships with, their inhabited spaces, and objects of interaction exists through, with, and as photographic imagery. This is done to further dialogs of relationships of image-making, existence, and conceptual formulations through the sequencing, intervening, and examination of their compositions. This allots for a further inquiry of physical, ethereal and psychological spaces to become recontextualized through the perceptions, futilities, liminal spaces, and notions imagery creates.
shelter (showing and glowing)
16" x 20"
archival inkjet print in handmade bloodwood frame