Jen Davis is a New York based photographer. For the past 11 years she has been working on a series of Self-Portrait’s dealing with issues regarding beauty, identity, and body image.

She has also been exploring men as a subject, and is interested in investigating the idea of relationships, both physical and psychological, with her camera. She received an MFA from Yale University in 2008, and BA from Columbia College Chicago in 2002.  Davis’ work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. This fall her work will be shown in a solo shows at Braenderigaarden Centre of Contemporary Art in Viborg Denmark and at Galerie ENTRE in Paris France. Davis has exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Catherine Edelman Gallery, Stephen Daiter Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne, Germany.  Her photographs are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Sir Elton John Photography Collection, and The Library of Congress among others. She has been featured in publications including Camera Austria, Aperture, Photography Quarterly, and PDN. Davis is represented by Lee Marks Fine Art.

Self-Portraits

In this body of work, I deal with the insecurities associated with my body image and the direct correlation between self-perception and the way one is perceived by others. Photography is the medium that I use to tell my story through life, an outlet for revealing my struggles and thoughts in regards to the society in which we live. A society that dictates beauty based on ones appearance.

I have built a relationship between the camera and myself where I transform the act of taking a photograph into a performance for the camera. My work is partially based on personal experiences that I have re-constructed into a photograph, and the other part consists of made up fantasies of what I imagine a physical relationship to be regarding intimacy, love and desire. [Official Website]

Through the act of photographing I invite the viewer into the past eleven years of my private life, exploring the vulnerabilities that I carry associated with a life-long struggle with my body, feelings of isolation, the battle to recognize beauty, a quest for intimacy, and sense of acceptance through the camera’s eye.