Julie Renée Jones learned about photography from her father, a practicing amateur imagemaker. Jones went on to earn a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in photography and during that time, developed two kindred yet dueling bodies of work: Thirteen and Umbra. Both deal with the role that family and childhood plays in understanding ourselves, the uses of imagination and its power to transcend and reveal reality, and the specifics of growing up in suburban Midwest America. Jones’ images are creative visions that are parts performance and play and she conceals conventional photographic reality with optical tricks, extreme light and vivid color. In 2015, she was awarded the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and in 2018 she received the Montgomery County Artist Opportunity Grant from Culture Works. She lives in Dayton Ohio.
