bio

Photographer Jeanne Wells was born and raised on the Maine coast, where she has lived most of her life. Using medium and large format cameras, she employs a range of antiquarian and alternative printing techniques such as wet plate collodion, photogravure, platinum, liquid silver emulsion and lith printing. Though she is mostly self-taught, she has also studied with wet collodion with Mark Osterman at The George Eastman House, Keliy Anderson-Staley at the Bakery Photographic Collective. Wells learned the polymer photogravure process from artist Josephine Sacabo and her assistant, Meg Turner at Josephine’s studio in New Orleans, Clay Harmon at North Light Photographic Workshops, Paul Taylor at Renaissance Press, and Silvi Glattauer at Baldessin Press in Melbourne, AU.

Recent exhibitions include: Odes & Alliterations, photo works 2003-2018, Reed Art Gallery, University of Maine Presque Isle; The White Sutra, and Photogravures, Susan Maasch Fine Art, Portland Maine; Actinic, Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, Scotland; The Antiquarian Image an invitational at St. Tammany Art Assoc, Covington, LA; Light Sensitive 2015 & 2016, Art Intersection in Gilbert AZ; Alternative Processes at Center for Fine art Photography, Christopher James, juror; Antiquarian & the New Alchemy, an invitational at Serenbe Photography curated by S. Gayle Stevens; Panopticon Gallery in Boston; The Kiernan Gallery in Lexington, Virginia; LightBox Photographic in Astoria, OR; New Orleans Photo Alliance; and Galleri Form & Farg in Eskilstuna, Sweden. She has received the Merit Award from Black and White magazine; a special mention for her website in Black and White UK magazine; and was one of six women written about in a View Camera Magazine piece entitled, “Women and Their Big Cameras.”

Many of her collectors were introduced to Jeanne’s work through the Daily Print project which she conceived of and ran from 2008-2011. The project consisted of one print each day, made in the darkroom and emailed to a list of subscribers. Jeanne is represented by Unlimited Grain Gallery in Rotterdam, LensModern in London, and Susan Maasch Fine Art, Portland, Maine. Her work is held in private collections around the world.

Jeanne teaches and works at her studio, Things of This World Press, in Aroostook County, Maine. She says her early life in both music and poetry continue to influence and inspire her visual work.