For commissions and print inquiries, please email: joe.leavenworth@gmail.com
Photography is at the heart of Joe's visual practice, which includes book-making, drawing, painting, and video. His work examines the shaping of personal identity to address notions of family, memory, place, and time. Joe's first monograph, Native Son, was published by VUU in 2014 and his second monograph, Ayngel, will be published by Trespasser in 2025. His books are held in the public collection libraries of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art. Joe has exhibited widely, including the current group show Trespasser at Kominek Gallery, Berlin, DE (2024). Joe is a recipient of the L.A. Art Workers Grant (2020), finalist for The Print Center’s 95th Annual Award selected by David Campany and Larissa Goldston (2020), finalist for the Kodak Film Photo Award - New Project Award (2019), nominee for Rema Hort Mann Foundation's Emerging Artist Grant (2018), and he is twice recipient of the Gluck Teaching Fellowship (2016 & 2017). His photographs have been featured in The New York Times Magazine, T Magazine, W Magazine, Apartamento, The Fader, Bloomberg Businessweek, FT Weekend, Oxford American, and Novembre, among others. Joe has taught photography at the Cooper Union, International Center of Photography, and UC Riverside. He holds a BFA in Photography from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA in Visual Art from UC Riverside.
@jleavjleav
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Education
2018 Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art, University of California, Riverside
2007 Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography, Maryland Institute College of Art
Awards & Honors
2020 The Print Center 95th Annual International Award, selected by David Campany and Larissa Goldston, Finalist
2020 L.A. Art Workers Relief Fund Emergency Grant, Recipient
2019 Film Photo Award, New Project Award, Fall 2019, Finalist
2018 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Los Angeles, Nominee
2017-18 Gluck VIP Teaching Fellowship, UC Riverside, Recipient
2016-17 Gluck Teaching Fellowship, UC Riverside, Recipient
2015 Chancellor's Distinguished Fellowship, UC Riverside, Recipient
2015 PDN 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch, Nominee
2012 Artist in Residence, Ox-Bow School of Art, Saugatuck, MI
2012 Kodak Film Grant, Recipient
Solo Exhibitions
2017 Ayngel, Stevie, Custer, Muldoon, Phyllis Gill Gallery, Riverside, CA
2015 Native Son, Mast Books, New York, NY
2014 Native Son, Aviary, Jamaica Plain, MA
2014 Native Son, VUU Studio, Brooklyn, NY
2012 Autumn Blues, Ox-Bow School of Art, Saugatuck, MI
Select Group Exhibitions
2024 Trespasser, Kominek Gallery, Berlin, DE
2023 Postcards for Palestine, Claire de Rouen Books, London, UK
2023 Postcards for Palestine, Berlinskej Model Gallery, Prague, CZ
2021 When in Athens, The Humid, Athens, GA
2021 The Print Center 95th Annual International Award, Finalists, Philadelphia, PA
2020 ACP Open, Atlanta Celebrates Photography, Atlanta, GA
2018 Benefit Auction Preview, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA
2018 Citrus, Grand, Cherry, MFA Thesis, Culver Center of the Arts, Riverside, CA
2017 Polylogue, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA
2017 SoCal MFA, juried by Amanda Ross-Ho, Millard Sheets Art Center, Pomona, CA
2017 Feral Gamut, FAR Bazaar, Cerritos College, Cerritos, CA
2016 Liquid Suspension, Phyllis Gill Gallery, Riverside, CA
2016 There Was a Pool Here, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA
2015 Can You Move It All Up One Inch, Art Helix, Brooklyn, NY
2014 Staff Show, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2014 The American South, Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA
2014 The American South, Oglethorpe Gallery, Savannah, GA
2014 In One Place or Another, Aviary Gallery, Jamaica Plain, MA
2014 Across the Gutter, Oranbeg Press, 110 Meserole, Brooklyn, NY
2014 Hindsight, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, DK
2013 Empty Stretch, Petworth Citizen & Reading Room, Washington DC
2013 Blog/Re-Blog, Signal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2013 Working Professionals, 92Y Tribeca, New York, NY
2012 Slow Exposures, R.F. Strickland, Concord, GA
2012 3200K, Sarah Pollman Gallery, Allston, MA
2012 All Visual Slideshow Boston, Spectacle, Jamaica Plain, MA
2010 Food, Garfield Art Works, Pittsburgh, PA
2010 Food, 709 Railroad St., Johnstown, PA
2010 Work Progress Collective, LMCC Swing Space, New York, NY
2009 Dreamboats Collective, Umbrage Gallery, New York, NY
Books
2025 Ayngel, Trespasser, (forthcoming)
2016 Angel (xeroxero), artist book
2015 Native Son, second edition, VUU
2014 Native Son, first edition, VUU
2013 Late Night Boys, artist book
2010 Pictures from Home, artist book
Select Publications
2023 John Divola, Apartamento #32
2021 A New Nothing: No. 1, Sleeper Studio
2019 American Chordata, Issue 8
2014 The United States 2003-2013, Mossless
2014 The American South, Ain’t Bad
2012 Volume no. 2, The Things We've Seen, VUU
Public Collections
Brooklyn Museum Library
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Balch Art Research Library
Whitney Museum of American Art, Bulwark Special Collections Library
Teaching Experience
2023-present Lecturer, University of California, Riverside
Course: Introduction to Photo Processes
2022-2023 Visual Art Instructor, Emerson Elementary, Public Montessori School, Tulsa, OK
Foundations of Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, Collage, and Sculpture
2018-2019 Lecturer, University of California, Riverside
Course: Introduction to Photo Processes
2016-2018 Graduate Instructor, University of California, Riverside
Courses: Introduction to Image Manipulation; Alternative Materials and Photographic Processes
2016-2018 Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of California, Riverside
Courses: Intermediate Photography; Introduction to Photo Processes; Visual Art & Theory After 1945
2016-2018 Drawing Instructor, Gluck Fellowship, University of California, Riverside
Course: Drawing in Perspective
2013 Teaching Assistant to Irina Rozovsky, International Center of Photography, New York, NY
Course: Photography I: Digital
2010 Teaching Assistant to Corinne May Botz, The Cooper Union School of Art, New York, NY
Course: Street Photography
2006 Teaching Assistant to Camille Gustus, Maryland Institute College of Art
Course: Darkroom Photography
Artist Visits & Lectures
University of California, Riverside
Maryland Institute College of Art
Rhode Island School of Design
International Center of Photography
Maine College of Art
Ox-Bow School of Art
The Cooper Union School of Art