Jess T. Dugan (b. Biloxi, Mississippi, 1986)
Notions of intimacy, desire, and human connection abound throughout Jess T. Dugan’s work. At a young age, the artist found representations of queer culture, individuals, and community in art books such as Del LaGrace Volcano and Judith “Jack” Halberstam’s The Drag King Book (1999), Diane Neumaier’s Reframings: New American Feminist Photographies (1998), and Catherine Lord and Richard Meyer’s Art & Queer Culture (2013). For Dugan, such books illuminated the power representation holds. In their series Look at me like you love me, 2015‒22, and Every Breath We Drew, 2011‒15, Dugan photographs people within their community. The artist’s slower process instills a formal and structured quality to the portraits. This time also affords Dugan and the sitter opportunities for empathy and collaboration, resulting in images that convey the importance and necessity of being seen. While Dugan’s work provides representation of and for the queer community, their work delves into the universal complexities of being human.
Diaries of Home showcases work from their ongoing series Family Pictures, 2012‒present. Three generations are depicted: Dugan’s mother and her partner, the artist and their former partner Vanessa, and their child, Elinor. The series is continually growing, tracing the evolution of each family member and the nuanced dynamics between them. Dugan views Family Pictures as a lifelong project in which the passage of time is integral. There is no set path forward; the artist wants to capture the fluctuations that occur throughout their life. The duration of the project, and the trust and familiarity shared between the artist and their subjects, subverts the portraits’ formality and imbues the images with palpable tenderness.
For Dugan, language and photography are intrinsically linked. In 2017, the artist dove into film, creating Letter to My Father, a rhetorical video letter to their estranged father. For Diaries of Home, Dugan presents Letter to My Daughter, 2023. This autobiographical video is addressed to their daughter Elinor and consists of 150 family snapshots taken over the first five years of her life. As the images scroll, Dugan’s narration relays to Elinor their journey alongside Vanessa to become a parent, navigating parenthood as a queer and nonbinary person, the growth that stems from parenting, and the love between a parent and a child. As with Family Pictures, Dugan plans to revisit their filmic letters as Elinor grows. Together, the letter and photographs mark a particular chapter in both the artist and Elinor’s lives—reminiscent of a joint diary entry.
Jess T. Dugan, still image from Letter to My Daughter, 2023. Video, 16 minutes. Jess T. Dugan. © Jess T. Dugan