I am currently available for worldwide commissions and collaborations in: photography, art direction, publication design, research, creative consultation, writing, editing, lecturing, workshops, and 1:1 mentorship
Jessica Gianelli (b.1995) is a multidisciplinary artist, image-maker, storyteller, and facilitator whose practice lives at the intersection of identity, embodiment, and cultural narrative. Rooted in photography and extending into visual storytelling, research, editorial writing, and creative consulting, her work is a quiet excavation — a searching for truth, connection, and the unseen.
Born in New York as a first generation Caribbean American, her practice is shaped by personal history and feminine memory, tethered always to a longing for freedom, for connection, and for belonging. Her images — often intimate, textural, and meditative — are invitations into inner worlds, into the soft spaces where identity is formed, questioned, and reclaimed.
Drawn to the lives and lineages of women (and those who identify), to what has been hidden, overlooked, or misnamed, Jessica’s work lingers in the thresholds — between presence and absence, visibility and erasure. Through a process that is as much intuitive as it is researched, she asks: when we return to ourselves, fully and without performance, can we construct new narratives, shifting the way the world encounters us? Her visual language is grounded in empathy and observation — a quiet noticing of what lives just beneath the surface.
Whether working in still or moving image, the printed object, or the written word, she treats each medium as a vessel: translating the emotional, spiritual, and social dimensions of embodiment into cohesive aesthetic outcomes.
Her process often begins with inquiry — psychological, philosophical, or metaphysical — and moves through color, texture, and form toward whatever shape the story demands.
Combining the visual and the written, she builds layered worlds that honor complexity, contradiction, and becoming.
Jessica’s photographic work has been recognized by the British Journal of Photography’s International Photography Award and shortlisted for the Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award. Her projects have appeared internationally, including features in Fisheye Magazine, The Guardian, Der Greif, Creative Review, It’s Nice That, and more. She has lectured on the MA and BA Fashion Communication courses at Central Saint Martins, and carries out workshops regarding embodiment from visual and literary perspectives.
Group Exhibitions
2024 Art of Color Dior: Photography and Visual Arts Award Retrospective - Kyotographie Festival, Kyoto, Japan 13.04.2024 - 12.05.2024
2023 Open Walls Arles - Galerie Huit Arles, Arles, France 05.07.2023 - 26.09.2023
2022 British Journal of Photography International Photography Award Single Image Show - Seen Fifteen Gallery, London, United Kingdom 18.11.2022 - 27.11.2022
2021 Art of Color Dior: Photography and Visual Arts Award Retrospective - Shenzen Museum of Contemporary Arts, Shenzen 26.09.2021 - 26.10.2021
2021 Commodities - The Molasses Gallery, London 22.07.2021 - 23.09.2021
2021 Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award - LUMA Foundaition, Arles, France 04.07.2021 - 26.09.2021
2021 Palm* Photo Prize - 10 14 Gallery, London, 20.05.2021 - 30.08.2021
2021 Der Greif Guest Room: Gem Fletcher ‘optimism and revolution-making’ (online)
2021 Der Greif Guest Room: Anna-Alix Koffi ‘Pleasing doesn't interest me...’ (online)
Awards
2023 Open Walls Arles Single Image - Arles, France
2022 British Journal of Photography International Photography Award Single Image - London, United Kingdom
2021 Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award (shortlist) - Arles, France
2021 Palm* Photo Prize (shortlist) - London, United Kingdom
Press
Fisheye #66
British Journal of Photography
Der Greif
It’s Nice That
British Journal of Photography
Der Greif
Vogue Poland
The Face
Creative Review
I-D Magazine
1 Granary
Talks, Workshops, + Lectures
FINDING HOME: A Digital Embodiment Workshop
Visual Research and Identity Lecture / MA Fashion Image at Central Saint Martins
Panel Discussion: Mapping Identity and Diaspora / SHOWStudio
jessica@jessicagianelli.com
+44 746 0743 127 (UK)
@femireal_