Geoffrey Ellis

Geoffrey Ellis is a photographer who went to school to be a graphic designer. His dad gave him his first camera way back in 1989, which he used until it was stolen from his car along with a full basket of clean laundry. He publishes photo-zines called Sadkids, and Get Off My Lawn, loves road trips, collecting junk and taking pictures.

 

He is co-founder of the Vegas Vernacular Project, founder of the Las Vegas Camera Club and was a recipient of the 2007 James D. Phelan Art Award in photography. In 2013 he earned an MFA in photography from the University of Hartford Art School.

 

He has lived in southern California, all throughout Florida, in Memphis and in San Jose. He currently splits his time between San Francisco’s Mission District and Downtown Las Vegas. He has a beautiful son and daughter, a lot of junk, and one really old cat.

 

Artist Statement

In This Must Be The Place I explore the tensions of a place where an amplified sense of desperation, loneliness, and violence all exist in tandem with power, sexuality, glamor, and good fortune where the consequences and cruelty of life are played out every second.

 

The Las Vegas I imagine is one not too divorced from reality, where the extremes of luxury and vice are out in the open and the lure of promise draws one in. It is a place that is as seductive as it is repellent.

 

Solo Exhibitions

2014
32nd Annual Juried Membership Exhibition | Houston Center of Photography | Houston, TX
Aperture Summer Open 2014 | Aperture Foundation | New York, NY
The National: Best Contemporary Photography 2014 | Fort Wayne Museum of Art : Fort Wayne, IN
2013
Hartford Limited Residency MFA Thesis Show | 25CPW | New York, NY
Gonerfest 10th Anniversary Show | Goner Records | Memphis, TN
Hartford Limited Residency MFA Thesis Show | Joseloff Gallery | Hartford, CT
Falling Angel: Geoffrey Ellis and Bryan McCormick | Trifecta Gallery | Las Vegas, NV
Roadhouse 4.0: Geoffrey Ellis and Bryan McCormick | Vast Space Projects | Las Vegas, NV
2012
Vegas Vernacular Project | Amanda Harris Gallery and Trifecta Gallery | Las Vegas, NV
Long Lonely Swims | Kominek Gallery | Berlin, Germany
2010 & 2011
Rock Show II & III: Live Rock Show photography | Rite Spot | San Francisco, CA
2009
Ersatz | SF Camerawork | San Francisco, CA
Slideluck Potshow SF II | LeftSpace | San Francisco, CA
2008
Welcome All: Geoffrey Ellis and Andrew M. Scott | Needles and Pens | San Francisco, CA
Horses, Dolls, And Other Junk (solo show) | Reading Frenzy | Portland, OR
2007
James D. Phelan Art Award in Photography | SF Camerawork | San Francisco, CA
Our World | SFAC Gallery, SF Arts Commission/PhotoAlliance | San Francisco, CA
2006
New in Town | 3rd Ward, Humble Arts Foundation | Brooklyn, NY
Class of ‘06 | Lantana Projects | Memphis, TN

 

Awards/Honors

2014

Beth Block Juried Membership Honoraria | Houston Center for Photography

PDN 2014 Photo Annual

2010

Photo-Eye Best photo books of 2010 list for Get Off My Lawn (Chosen by Larissa Leclair of Independent Photobook Library)

2007

James D. Phelan Art Award in Photography (Juried by Daniell Cornell, and Lisa Dent)