Jayme McLellan

Bio

McLellan is a curator, gallery director, artist and educator supporting artists at all levels of their careers. Her curatorial practice focuses on living contemporary artists and regularly includes research and writing for catalogues and other interpretive materials. In addition to organizing and curating over 150 exhibitions over twenty years, since 2009, she has led graduate-level curatorial practice and exhibition courses as well as taught professional practices for undergraduate visual artists.

Projects and accomplishments include the Tandem Project, a residency and exchange for artists from the countries of the former Yugoslavia after the war in the Balkans; co-founding Transformer in Washington, DC as a non-profit arts organization designed to support emerging artists through professional exhibitions and workshops, mentoring, and peer-networking locally and internationally; founding Civilian Art Projects in 2006, as a commercial gallery that supported hundreds of artists in over 100 exhibitions, artist's talks, events, and other public programs. She is also a collections manager of 2,000 objects of contemporary art for a family foundation in Washington, DC.

She is the project manager and co-curator for the ongoing HARD ART DC 1979 project, a book (Akashic Books, Ltd.) and traveling exhibition about the early DC punk scene depicted in photographs by celebrated war photographer Lucian Perkins, with writing by Alec MacKaye and Henry Rollins. Exhibition venues include the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in North Carolina; agnes b. Headquarters Gallery in Paris, France; Neurotitan Gallery in Berlin, Germany; Summerhall in Edinburgh, Scotland; Good Children in New Orleans, LA; and more.

As an educator, she has led courses on curatorial practice, art history, and professional practices for visual artists in colleges and universities including Georgetown University, the Corcoran College of Art + Design, George Washington University, George Mason University, American University and St. Mary's College of MD. Passionately believing in supporting arts ecosystems, from 2012 to 2014 she led a community effort to save the Corcoran Gallery and College of Art + Design, where she began her teaching career, from dissolution.

Her master's degree capstone investigated climate justice, inclusive art programs and the role of contemporary art institutions in our time of climate change.

CURATORIAL PROJECTS

Scavenger Deities: Adventures in Museum Waste at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, Sept 1 – October 22, 2023. A year-long partnership with artist Rachel Schmidt on value, sustainability, loss and healing through creating contemporary art from waste.

HARD ART DC 1979: An exhibition and published book (Akashic Books) about the birth of the DC punk movement through the photography of two-time Pulitzer prize winner Lucian Perkins. Essay by Henry Rollins, writing by Alec MacKaye. Past exhibitions include:
Summerhall, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2024
Neurotitan Gallery, Berlin, Germany, with the film Punk the Capital, 2022
Lost Origins Gallery, Washington, DC
agnes b. headquarters gallery, Paris, France, 2015
Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC, 2014
Good Children Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2012
Civilian Art Projects, Washington, DC, 2011

Frank DiPerna: Retrospective (January 27 – March 11, 2018). American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC (catalog essay with Andy Grundberg).

Living On The Land, Vol. 1 (June 1 – August 5, 2017), Salisbury University and Living On The Land, Vol. 2 (September 6 – November 12, 2017), St. Mary’s College of Maryland. An exhibition about relationships to the land during climate change featuring local contemporary artists.

DARFUR/DARFUR (2006-2008), A traveling exhibit of digitally-projected images on the multi-cultural region while exposing the ongoing humanitarian crisis as told through the lens of photojournalists and one marine. The exhibit toured 24 countries in 27 months and was projected on the façade of museums. Served as Assistant Curator for the exhibition at the below venues as well as fundraiser and manager:
Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, Canada (March 2008)
City Museum, Ljubljana, Slovenia (February 2008)

Collective Archive (March 4 – April 30, 2012), School 33 Art Center, Baltimore, MD

Noelle K. Tan, (June 2011), Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL. Curated the photography exhibition of this noted Filipino-American artist.

Frontier Preachers: Artists from New Orleans (June 6 – July 26, 2009), Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN

Tandem: Passages (June 9 – July 14, 2000), DC Arts Center & Signal 66 in Washington, DC. An exhibition and residency for artists from the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Curatorial research took place in the region in 1999 thanks to a generous grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding to bring five artists to Washington
SELECT PRESENTATIONS

Art, War, Photography, Native Hostel, Austin, TX with Lucian Perkins, Lely Constantinople and LouLou Ghelichkhani, June 2022

The Art of Frank DiPerna, Revolve, Asheville, NC with Bernard Welt, October 2020

Professional Practices for the Visual Artist, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD, May 2018

Professional Practices for the Visual Artist, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, October 2017

The Dissolution of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Creative Time Summit, Corcoran School of the Arts at George Washington University, Washington, DC, 2016

How to Make a Museum Disappear, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, November 2015

Professional Practices for the Visual Artist, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, November 2015

The Dissolution of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA, January 2015

Arts Ecosystem: Washington, DC. Slovenia Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA), Ljubljana, Slovenia, April 2014.

HARD ART DC 1979, Curator Discussion with Lely Constantinople, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, June 2014

Artist Survival Skills, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, November 2014