about J.T. Blatty
Jenn Tuero (J. T.) Blatty was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1978. She 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 and inspired by a love of capturing life, people and her personal experiences with disposable cameras, notebooks, and pens, she pursued photography and writing as her career. She currently resides in New Orleans, where she returned in 2010, after a photo internship with National Geographic Traveler.
Blatty is the author of Fish Town: Down the Road to Louisiana’s Fishing Communities, a photojournalist, and FEMA disaster reservist photographer whose photographs and articles have been published in Bloomberg Magazine, National Geographic, PDN Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Savannah Magazine, The Daily Beast/ Newsweek, The Oxford American, and CNN Photos amongst others. Her work has been exhibited in the Multimedia Moscow House of Photography in Russia, the Borges Cultural Center in Argentina, the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, among other museums and galleries. Since early 2018, she’s spent months embedded in the war in eastern Ukraine, working with Ukraine’s volunteer soldiers and veterans of the war in the Donbas. The project, Frontline–Peace Life: Ukraine’s Revolutionaries of the Forgotten War, will be exhibited at the Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago in May 2019, and at the Ukrainian Institute of the America in New York City in January 2020, in addition to other locations throughout the United States.
Recent Accolades:
• Finalist (Frontline–Peace Life): Michael P. Smith Fund Grant, 2019
• Winner: Tuscany Writeaway Scholarship, 2018
Elva Resa Publishing/Books Make a Difference/Writeaways
• 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 Fund for Documentary Grant, 2013
Solo Exhibitions:
• Upcominig: Frontline–Peace Life: Ukrainian Institute of America, NYC, Jan 2020
• Current: Frontline–Peace Life: National Ukrainian 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, Multi-Media Museum/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 (Group), LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, 2012
• International Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography (Group), 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