CASSIE JAIN

Images: “Self Portrait Hugging” and “Three Year Anniversary”

instagram: @cassie.jain

STATEMENT: 

I am making diaristic images of affection, love, and care in deeply personal, yet ephemeral, spaces. Self-portraits and portraits of the people and places I love — my best friends, my family, my new and old homes — are the foundation of my bodies of work. Through analogue photography and book arts, I map the development of my relationships and the ways in which images accumulate and shift meanings over time. After experiencing two and a half years of pandemic-induced lockdown, my photographs explore how we create comfort and sense of place within strangeness and loneliness.

By putting time and love into my relationships and my work, I hope that viewers also feel affection towards the people and spaces I photograph.

BIO: 

Cassie Jain is an artist, art historian, and educator. Her practice is rooted in analogue photography and in the tactile, meditative, and collaborative possibilities of image making.  She is pursuing an MFA in Photography and Related Media at SUNY New Paltz and received her BA in Art History with Department Honors from Vassar College. Cassie has exhibited work at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (New Paltz, NY), the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (Poughkeepsie, NY), BAU Gallery (Beacon, NY), and JKC Gallery (Trenton, NJ). Her research has been published in the Bowdoin Journal of Art. She has given artist guest lectures at Marble Hill Camera Club and SUNY New Paltz.

Cassie currently lives and works in New Paltz, NY. She can usually be found photographing on the banks of the Wallkill River or in the darkroom with her best friend.