Jess Levey

Artist Statement

I work with photography and video to explore the intersections of body, time, and the natural world, examining how cycles of change and aging can be sites of growth, renewal, and reclamation. I am drawn to how photography shapes what we see and value, and how it can be reclaimed as a space for reflection and agency. Across my practice, I investigate how histories of authority, and desire continue to shape perception while imagining ways to release and transform these inherited narratives.

In Sightlines, I examine photography’s historical role in systems of power, from colonial land surveys to patriarchal ideals of the female body. I layer 19th-century archival landscapes with self-portraits inspired by iconic photographic nudes, placing my body within histories that once framed land and women as objects to be claimed and consumed. These images rest on the sliced edges of my own 35mm negatives, grounding the work in material history and lived experience. Custom lightboxes illuminate the layers, revealing both the histories embedded in the images and the presence of a body that resists the fixation on youth and thinness.

In another series, Controlled Burn, I revisit negatives from my youth, photographing and overlaying them onto images of fire. The flames evoke the burning away of past selves and memories, exploring letting go as an act of transformation and renewal. These works engage with memory, impermanence, and the passage of time, finding strength and possibility in what is released.

Second Spring continues this engagement with cycles of life in both nature and the body, focusing on midlife as a period of emergence and growth. Inspired by menopause writer Kate Codrington, the project combines photography, video, and social engagement to honor the wisdom and resilience of the aging woman. Images of nurse logs, mirrored collages of body and land and a single channel video presenting fragments from conversations with women navigating midlife aim to challenge cultural assumptions that a woman’s worth is tied to fertility or sexuality.

Together, these projects explore how the gaze, memory, and natural cycles shape our understanding of ourselves and the world. Whether through historical landscapes, self-portraiture, revisited negatives, or collaborations with the rhythms of nature, I use photography to witness, rather than control, creating images where presence, agency, and transformation take center stage.