about J.T. Blatty
Photojournalist Jenn Tuero (J. T.) Blatty graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2000 and served six years as an active-duty U.S. Army officer, deploying with the first troops into Afghanistan following 9/11 and again into Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After completing her service to the military, she pursued freelance photography and writing as a career, working as a regular contributor for Connect Savannah Magazine, the New Orleans Advocate, and as a FEMA disaster reservist photographer after completing an internship with National Geographic Traveler.
Blatty is represented by Polaris Images and the Martine Chaisson Gallery (New Orleans), and is the author of Fish Town: Down the Road to Louisiana’s Fishing Communities. Since early 2018, she has been documenting the conflict in eastern Ukraine while simultaneously creating photographic/audio archive of the 2014 volunteer soldiers of the Donbas (exhibited in Chicago and NYC in 2019-2020, opening March 2022 in Kyiv), the revolutionaries who self-deployed during the original Russian insurgency and saved Ukraine’s independence. A recent Ukraine Fulbright alum, Blatty continues her photojournalistic work in the Donbas while writing a military memoir that reveals the universality of combat veterans of all wars, regardless of sides or of country, that has the power to transcend the boundaries of nation and conflict.
Publications include: Bloomberg, National Geographic, PDN Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Savannah Magazine, The Daily Beast/ Newsweek, The Oxford American, and CNN Photos.
Recent Accolades:
• 2021 -2022 Fulbright Grantee, Ukraine
• FISH TOWN: Bronze Medal (Regional/Non-Fiction), IPPY Book Awards 2020
• 200 Finalist (Frontline–Peace Life), Critical Mass 2019
• Finalist (Frontline–Peace Life), CDS Lange-Taylor Prize 2019
• Finalist (Frontline–Peace Life): Michael P. Smith Documentary Fund 2019
• Winner: Writeaway Scholarship, Elva Resa Publishing/Books Make a Difference 2018
• Finalist, CDS Lange-Taylor Prize 2015
• Honorable Mention, Telfair Art Fair 2015
• Finalist (Fish Town), Critical Mass 2013
• Finalist (Fish Town), Clarence John Laughlin Award 2013
• Finalist (Fish Town), Michael P. Smith Documentary Fund 2013
Solo Exhibitions:
• Frontline–Peace Life: Ukrainian Institute of America, NYC, Jan 2020
• Frontline–Peace Life: Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago, Jun 2019
• FISH TOWN, Martine Chaisson Gallery, Sep 2018
• Happy Dogs, Martine Chaisson Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2015
• Parallel, Martine Chaisson Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2012
Group Exhibitions Include:
• Recollections, New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery, 2017
• Louisiana Photography Biennial, New Orleans Art Center, La, 2016
• Currents, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, 2015-2016
• New Orleans in Photographs, Moscow House of Photography, Russia, 2014
• TIME, Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography/Museum of New Art, MI Jul 2013
• Currents, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA, Nov 29 2012 - Jan 6 2013
• FROZEN WORLD, Photo Annual Awards, Teplice/Czech Republic, 2012
• 25th International Exhibition of Animals in Art, LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, 2012
• International Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography, Borges Cultural Center, Argentina 2012
• NOIR, New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2011
• Science, Poetry and the Photographic Image, SPE, Atlanta, GA and Phoenix, AZ, 2011
• DIA Invitational, C4FAP, Denver International Airport, 2007