CV + Contact

BIOGRAPHY

BORN 1987 IN BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND, UK. BASED IN LOS ANGELES AND NEW YORK CITY.

Jonathan David Smyth, also known as Julian Scott, works across photography, performance, moving image, sculpture, text, and installation. His work has been exhibited at prestigious venues worldwide, including Free Range (London), PH21 Gallery (Budapest), Auckland Festival of Photography, Jimei x Arles (China), LAST Projects (Los Angeles), Photoville (Brooklyn), The Ulster Museum (Belfast), Metro Pictures Gallery (NYC), and the FotoFest 2022 Biennial (Houston).

His art is held in both public and private collections and has been featured in publications such as Apartamento, Aint-Bad, Float Photo Magazine, and Musée Magazine. His work is also included in books like Michelle Dunn Marsh’s Seeing Being Seen: A Personal History of Photography and Michael Petry’s MirrorMirror: The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art. He has been a guest on Good Morning, Sodomites! with Zach Noe Towers and BBC Radio Ulster’s The Arts Show.

Smyth earned a BA in photography and film from Edinburgh Napier University (2010) and an MFA from Parsons School of Design (2014). He has taught at Photographic Center Northwest (Seattle), the International Center of Photography (NYC), and Parsons School of Design. He has published two monographs with bd-studios.com: Just One More (2017) and Now That You've Gone and Come Back (2023), released alongside his residency at the Tom of Finland Foundation (Los Angeles). He lives and works in Los Angeles and New York City.

He can be reached at: info@jonathandavidsmyth.com

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ARTIST STATEMENT

I’VE SPENT YEARS OBSESSIVELY WRITING, RECORDING, AND DOCUMENTING MY LIFE.

As an adopted child in Northern Ireland, I was only too aware of the differences between my family and my friends at school. For years, I wasn’t allowed to talk about my adoption, and it made me feel angry and ashamed. I came out as gay at fourteen. I moved out of my parents’ house at sixteen. I then began to be honest through photography in the hope that other people might relate to my story, too. I am no longer ashamed, but I use the memory of feeling inadequate and out-of-place as a starting point for my artwork.

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