Jess T. Dugan “Look at me like you love me”

ClampArt

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CLAMP presents “Look at me like you love me,” an exhibition of photographs from Jess T. Dugan’s 2022 monograph of the same title, published by MACK.

“Look at me like you love me” includes self-portraits, portraits of individuals and couples, and still lifes that collectively form a poetic representation of contemporary life through Dugan’s eyes.

In the images Dugan aims to explore how relationships and intimacy shape one’s identity. The individuals depicted in Dugan’s images vary in class, race, age, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Some are depicted alone, others with their loved ones, always seen by the photographer with a direct and honest perspective. By capturing individuals in a matter-of-fact way, Dugan creates space for the sitter’s complex internal life, leaving viewers with enough unsaid to encourage contemplation.

Dugan’s inclusion of self-portraits within an already highly personal collection of imagery, serves an explicitly auto-biographical purpose, documenting the artist’s emotional and physical state in various settings at different moments in time.

In addition to portraits and self-portraits, Dugan captures still lifes, which help to set the mood of the project, and punctuate the portraiture with moments of stillness and reflection.

Jess T. Dugan (American, b. 1986, Biloxi, MS) is an artist whose work explores issues of identity through photography, video, and writing. They received their MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago, their Master of Liberal Arts in Museum Studies from Harvard University, and their BFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Dugan’s work has been widely exhibited and is in the permanent collections of over 45 museums, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery; International Center of Photography; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Minneapolis Institute of Art; St. Louis Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Photography; and Library of Congress.

Dugan’s monographs include Look at me like you love me (MACK, 2022), To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults (Kehrer Verlag, 2018) and Every Breath We Drew (Daylight Books, 2015).

They are the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, an ICP Infinity Award, and were selected by the Obama White House as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change.