Jocelyn Lee is an American contemporary artist and photographer currently based in Portland, Maine and Brooklyn, New York. Lee works in a variety of genres including portrait, still life and landscape. Her work has been exhibited widely and is included in many public and private collections. She works exclusively in film with a medium format camera. Lee is also the director and curator of Speedwell Projects, an experimental gallery and think tank in Portland, Maine dedicated to producing significant solo exhibitions for emerging, established and under-represented artists.
Jocelyn Lee was born in Naples Italy and received her B.A. in philosophy and visual arts from Yale University, and her M.F.A in photography from Hunter College. In 2013 she received a NYFA Fellowship, and in 2001 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is represented by Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York and Flatland Gallery in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her first monograph Nowhere but here was published by Steidl Publishers in December 2010 with a foreword by Sharon Olds. In 1996 her work The Youngest Parents was published by DoubleTake Books and The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in collaboration with Robert Coles and John Moses. Lee has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently in solo shows at the Huxley-Parlour Gallery, London and The Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine. She has also been included in significant group shows at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts ; the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine and for which she won a purchase prize; Wesleyan University ; Rose Gallery in L.A. ; Pace MacGill Gallery ; The Print Space in London, UK ; The Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO ; and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI Other significant solo and large exhibitions of her work include a solo show at Flatland Gallery in Utrecht, The Netherlands ; Rose Gallery in L.A. and Pace MacGill Gallery in NY to accompany her the publication of her monograph Nowhere but here; “Feature Photography” at The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, ; "Last Light" at The University of Southern Maine, Solo ; Pace MacGill Gallery in NY, Solo and Group ; The De Cordova Museum in Waltham, MA ; The Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME, Solo, The University of Maine Museum of Art, Solo ; Stone Hill College, Easton, MA, Solo ;The Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA, Solo ; The Bates College Museum of Art in Augusta, ME, ; The Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton, MA ; The Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME, ; Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta, GA, ; The LFL Gallery in NYC, Solo ; The Portland Museum of Art in Portland, ME, ; and The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA. Her works are in the collections of Maison Europeen de la Photographie, Paris, France; The Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; The Yale Museum of Art, New Haven, CT; The List Center at MIT, Cambridge, MA; The Portland Museum of Art; Portland, ME; The Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO.; The Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; The Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; The Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME; The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, N.C.; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; The Bates College Museum of Art. Lewiston, ME; The Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockport, ME; The Margulies Collection; as well as numerous other private collections. Her work has appeared in many national and international publications including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Photo Raw, Snoeks, Real Simple, MORE magazine, PDN, Allegra, DoubleTake, the Hayden Review, Marie Claire and Harper’s and others. in Creative Boom by Tora Baker – March 4, 2018 in Artsy by Alina Cohen – April 9, 2018 in Aesthetica Magazine – April 11, 2018 in It’s Nice That by Lucy Bourton – April 19, 2018 in AnOther by Miss Rosen – April 20, 2018 in Lens/cratch by Aline Smithson – June 5, 2018 in The Boston Globe by Cate McQuaid – June 15, 2018 in The New Yorker by Rebecca Bengal – June 15, 2018 in MaineToday by Bob Keyes – June 18, 2018 in Photograph Magazine – June 25, 2018 in What Will You Remember? by Elin Spring – June 28, 2018 in Fisheye Magazine by Lou Tsatsas – June 29, 2018 in The Eye of Photography by L’ŒIL DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE – July 4, 2018 in Artscope Magazine by Greg Morell – July 5, 2018 in Portland Phoenix – July 5, 2018 in Portland Press Herald by Daniel Kany – July 15, 2018 on WMPG with Chris White – July 17, 2018 in Carnet d’Art by Jean Paul Gavard Perret – July 17, 2018 in Ignant by Rosie Flanagan – July 23, 2018 in Collateral by Claudia Fuggetti – July 25, 2018
Photographic style
Lee creates color photographic portraits, oftentimes of people who she knows such as family members, as well as of people whom she's never before met. She finds models for some of her photographs by placing ads in local newspapers. Many of her subjects are depicted nude or are minimally dressed. Some of her photographs depict landscapes and many of her portraits were taken outdoors. The American poet Sharon Olds wrote the Foreword to Lee's book "Jocelyn Lee: Nowhere But Here".
