JJJJJerome Ellis
artist
studio@jjjjjerome.com
Lives and works in Norfolk, Virginia
b. 1989, Groton, Connecticut
Education
2011 Bachelor of Arts, Columbia University, Music Theory
Select Solo Performances + Commissions
2024 Cafe Oto (London)
2024 Borderline Festival (Athens)
2024 The Kitchen (NYC)
2024 Whitney Biennial 2024 (NYC)
2024 High Line (NYC)
2024 Big Ears Festival (Knoxville, TN)
2024 Tate Modern (London)
2023 Bard Graduate Center (NYC)
2023 silent green (Berlin)
2023 Getty Center (Los Angeles)
2023 Open Book/Liquid Music (Minneapolis, MN)
2023 The Indexical (Santa Cruz, CA)
2023 The Lab (San Francisco)
2023 2220 Arts + Archives (Los Angeles)
2023 Gray Center (Chicago)
2023 Poetry Foundation (Chicago)
2023 National Sawdust (Brooklyn)
2023 Biennale Venezia (Venice, Italy)
2023 Gallery TPW (Toronto, Canada)
2023 ICA Philadelphia
2023 Portland State University (Portland, Oregon) (virtual)
2023 Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey)
2022 Berlin Atonal
2022 Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, Georgia)
2022 Haus der Kunst (Munich, Germany)
2022 Rewire Festival (The Hague, Netherlands)
2022 Comotion Festival (Toronto, Canada)
2022 Pique (Ottawa, Canada)
2022 Schauspielhaus Zürich (Zürich, Switzerland)
2022 The Renaissance Society (Chicago, Illinois/virtual)
Solo Exhibitions
2024 JJJJJerome Ellis, Selected Works 2021-2023, Prosopopoeia (Vienna)
2023 Loops of Retreat, Sweet Pass Sculpture Park (Dallas, Texas)
Group Exhibitions
2024 Whitney Biennial (NYC)
2024 Smoke & Mirrors, Zimmerli Art Museum (New Brunswick, NJ)
2024 Glot, CCS Bard (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY)
2023 landscape hot mic, Juf (Madrid)
2023 Fugitive Speech, Oklahoma Contemporary (Oklahoma City)
2023 Tongues of Fire, Ballroom Marfa (Marfa, Texas)
2023 Voicings, Artspace Hew Haven (New Haven, Connecticut)
2023 Choralities, Maison Populaire (Montreuil, France)
2023 Typojanchi, International Typography Biennale (Seoul, South Korea)
2023 Art of Disruption/Art Prize (Grand Rapids, Michigan)
Select Group Performances + Commissions
2024 High Line (NYC)
2023 Perelman Center (New York, New York)
2022 Saint Ghetto Festival (Bern Switzerland)
2022 ICA Richmond (Richmond, Virginia)
2022 Benediction, The Shed (New York, New York)
2022 Piano Tales, Oklahoma Repertory Theatre (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
2022 “Gary’s Fun Day at the Swamp,” Virginia Symphony Orchestra (Norfolk, Virginia)
2020 Center for African-American Poetry and Poetics (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
2020 The Conversationalists, The Bushwick Starr (New York, New York)
2019 Ink: A Piece for Museums, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, New York)
2018 Piano Tales, MASS MoCA (North Adams, Massachusetts)
2017 Piano Tales, Lincoln Center Education (New York, New York)
2017 Aaron/Marie, The Public Theater (New York, New York)
Videos
2021 Impediment is Information
2021 Responsory; or, when shall we Walk clumsy into the Snow of now
2021 Deep Calls to Deep
2020 Life of Life
2020 Evensong
2020 transCRIPted
Publications
2023 Aster of Ceremonies (Milkweed Editions)
2022 “The Stutter is a Hearty Break” (Drum Listens to Heart catalogue)
2022 “The name of this silence is these grasses in this wind” (Zoeglossia)
2021 “Responsory; or, when shall we walk clumsy into the Snow of now” (Tripwire Journal Issue 18)
2021 “Prayers to my Stutter #1 and #3,” (The Offing)
2021 The Clearing (Wendy’s Subway)
2021 “The Clearing: Music, dysfluency, Blackness, and time” (Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies; reprinted by BAK)
Discography
2023 Compline in Nine Movements (NNA Tapes)
2021 The Clearing (NNA Tapes/Poetry Project)
2021 Fountain #3 (single) (NNA Tapes)
2020 Live Vol. 4: Apartment Concert 05182018 (Self-released)
2019 Live Vol. 3: Hymns and Odes (Self-released)
2018 Live Vol. 2: Apartment Concert 01272018 (Self-released)
2016 Live Vol. 1: The River (Self-released)
Select Compositions
2022 “Gary’s Fun Day at the Swamp” (with Luísa Black Ellis) commissioned by Virginia Symphony Orchestra
2018 “Two Psalms”
Works for Theater (all co-created with James Harrison Monaco)
2020 The Conversationalists
2019 Ink: A Piece for Museums
2016 Piano Tales
2015 Aaron/Marie
Select Presentations/Talks
2023 “The Clearing, Continued,” University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada)
2023 “This stutter is a black chant offered by the waterside” (Elson Lecture, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA)
2023 Keynote, Conference for FRIENDS: The National Association for Young People who Stutter (Chicago, Illinois)
2023 “The Clearing, Continued,” University of Chicago (Chicago, Illinois)
2022 Artist Talk, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, Illinois)
2022 Conversation with Christine Sun Kim, Haus der Kunst (Munich, Germany/virtual)
2021 Keynote, Canadian Stuttering Association Conference (virtual)
2020 Keynote, Ray Warren Symposium, Lewis and Clark College (Portland, Oregon)
Awards and Nominations
2024 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Vermont College of Fine Arts
2024 Lucille Lortel Award for (pray) (Category: Outstanding Musical; with nicHi douglas and S T A R R Busby)
2024 Drama Desk Award Nomination for (pray) (Category: Outstanding Music in a Play; nominated with S T A R R Busby)
2023 Telly Gold Award for Speech and Time (Category: Museums & Galleries–Social Video; with Savannah College of Art and Design)
2022 Wynn Newhouse Award
2022 Foundation for Contemporary Art Grants to Artists Award
2022 Anna Rabinowitz Prize (for The Clearing)
Fellowships and Residencies
2022 United States Artists Fellow
2022 Disability Futures Fellow
2022 Creative Capital Fellow
2021 ISSUE Project Room Residency, New York
2021 Ucross Residency, Wyoming
2022 MacDowell Residency, New Hampshire
2020 La MaMa Residency, New York
2019 Lincoln Center Theater Writer-in-Residence, New York
2019 MacDowell Residency, New Hampshire
2018 Kimmel Center for the Performing Artists Residency, Pennsylvania
2018 New York Theatre Workshop Residency, New York
2017 Ground Floor Residency, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California
2015 Fulbright Fellow, Brazil
Select Bibliography/Press
Beaudoin, Emil Douville. “Shattering the Imperial Document: Fractured Speech in Contemporary American Experimental Longform Poetry,” B.A. thesis, English Language and Literature, Smith College, 2024.
Cardwell, Erica N. “JJJJJerome Ellis’ The Clearing,” The Brooklyn Rail, March 2022.
Cervenak, Sarah Jane. "b.O.s 17.3 / Loops of Retreat," ASAP Journal, July 18, 2022.
Cole, Sean. “Time Bandit,” This American Life, August 7, 2020.
Diop, Arimeta. “The Whitney Biennial Welcomes a ‘Dissonant’ Chorus of Artists,” Vanity Fair, April 2, 2024.
Fishman, Howard. “Feeling Good: Howard Fishman on Jerome Ellis,” Artforum, November 25, 2019.
"Five Essential Books to Enliven Your Art Library," Cultured Magazine, February 4, 2022.
Gordon, Chloe. "JJJJJerome Ellis's The Clearing Explores Themes of Stuttering, Blackness, and Music," PRINT Mag, November 17, 2021.
Green, Jesse. “Review: Staging a Movie Melodrama in ‘The Conversationalists’,” New York Times, January 15, 2020.
Kaack, Nicole. "On Enunciation and Escape," Art in America, June 20, 2022.
Keller, Patricia. "there's a stutter in the archive," Diacritics Blog, November 23, 2021.
Kriegeskotte, Christian. "JJJJJerome Ellis Reframes Disability as a Means for Creation in 'The Clearing'," I Care If You Listen, October 23, 2021.
machado, danilo. "Carve Out a Little Emptiness Or, JJJJJerome Ellis Enters Through Another Door, Opens It, and Rearranges the Furniture," National Sawdust, December 13, 2023.
Moore, Marcus J. “Album of the Day: JJJJJerome Ellis, ‘The Clearing’,” Bandcamp Daily, November 4, 2021.
Morris, Kadish. “Artist and stutterer JJJJJerome Ellis: ‘So much pain comes from not feeling fully human’,” The Guardian, November 10, 2021.
Nicholas, Jack. "How do we think and talk about stammering? A stammering discussion group goes beyond words to explore art, attitudes, and activism," Redefining Stammering, June 29, 2022.
Sawle, Chris. “JJJJJerome Ellis signs to NNA Tapes and shares the infinite music of Fountain #3,” Backseat Mafia, April 25, 2021.
Schaefer, John. “#4488, Mostly Keys and Sax,” New Sounds, April 26, 2021.
Shaw, Helen. “Just Talking, But Sometimes More: The Conversationalists and The Truth Has Changed,” Vulture/New York Magazine, January 18, 2020.
Thompson, Shy. “The Clearing Review,” Pitchfork, November 30, 2021.
Wiener, Diane R. "Aster of Ceremonies Review," Wordgathering, Vol. 18, Issue 1, 2024.