Daris Jasper b. 1982

Daris Jasper is an American photographer and video artist who uses portraiture to explore how relationships and rituals shape the ways in which artists witness, mythologize, and navigate the contradictions of contemporary life. His images depict the unseen moments of creative production: Aztec dancers getting their headdresses ready in a grocery store parking lot, a painter running her fingers along the layered paint at the edge of a completed painting, a jazz trumpeter working on a new song, blowing notes filling an empty city park. His practice constructs a creative counter-archive, positioning each image as an art historical record. His work engages tensions between visibility and illegibility, ephemerality and permanence, and individual identity and the collective. His first image collections documenting Chicago cultural workers brought him widespread recognition, earning him Chicago’s 2021 Esteemed Artist of the Year award. Daris’s work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities - Illinois Humanities - Envisioning Justice Mellon Foundation; the Art for Justice Fund, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors; the MacArthur Safety and Justice Challenge, and Polk Bros. Foundation, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Chicago Park District, Robert R. McCormick Foundation, and the Latino Policy Forum. He serves as a board member for the Open Architecture Collaborative - Chicago, Xochitl-Quetzal Aztec Dance, and the Mendocino Art Center. He is a founding member of the Children’s Museum of Art and Social Justice and Healing Every Youth - Chicago. He lives and works in California.