Jade (Minh Ha) Nguyen
About Jade
Jade Nguyen is a photographer, artist, and educator from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Nguyen's work is informed by the appreciation for life, transformation, traditions, and interpersonal relationships present during her upbringing in Vietnam. Her documentation of Vietnamese culture highlights its vibrancy and contemporary issues while her work in alternative processes utilize image-making as a form of memory-mapping. From digital photography to alternative printing, the variety of photographic mediums, techniques, and subject matter found in her work reflects the extensive, ever-changing, and multifaceted Vietnamese culture that exists at the intersection, a culture that resists limitation, control, and stagnancy.
Nguyen is currently the Gallery and Exhibition Coordinator in the Visual Arts department during Arts Camp, and she will be starting as the Richardson-Spica Artist-in-Residence in Photography during Arts Academy in August. Nguyen recently completed her artist-in-residence program at Illinois State University in photography and video art. Her work has been featured in galleries and publications including Photographic Center Northwest, Woman Made Gallery, St. Louis Artist Guild, Lenscratch Magazine, Aeonian Magazine, Studio Montclair, Praxis Gallery, Artlink, Galesburg Community Arts Center, McLean County Art Center, F-Stop Magazine, Rachel Cooper Gallery and Universities Galleries at Illinois State University, and more.
Selected Exhibitions:
- Diptych, Praxis Gallery, St. Paul, MN | 2026
- Emerging Artist Exhibition, McLean County Arts Center, Bloomington, IL | 2026
- Midwest Regional, Artlink, Fort Wayne, IN | 2026
- Visual Narratives: 27th Juried Exhibition, Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, WA | 2025
- Things We Carry: an Asian Experience, Studio Montclair, Montclair, NJ | 2025
- A Conversation Between, University Galleries, Normal, IL | 2025
- agora, solo exhibition, St. Louis Artist Guild, St. Louis, MO | 2025
- Photo Triennial, Galesburg Community Art Center, Galesburgh, IL | 2025
- Photography Now, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL | 2025
- This House is Not For Sale, solo exhibition, McLean County Arts Center, Bloomington, IL | 2025
- polyphony, MFA Thesis Exhibition, University Galleries, Illinois State University, Normal, IL | 2024
- McLean County Art Exhibition, McLean County Arts Center, Bloomington, IL | 2024
- mutualism, two-person exhibition, Juilian Hall Gallery, Illinois State University, Normal, IL | 2023
- in our place, Midwest Nice Art, Alberdeen, SD | 2023
- returning to, two-person exhibition, Central Illinois Regional Airport Gallery, Bloomington, IL | 2022
- 14,000km, solo exhibition, Rachel Cooper Gallery, Illinois State University, Normal, IL | 2022
- McLean County Art Exhibition, McLean County Arts Center, Bloomington, IL | 2021
Publications:
- Aeonian Magazine, interview, Issue 14 | 2026
- Attention Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, Anna Von Mertens | 2025
- F-Stop Magazine,, Issue 130: Inhabit | 2025
- Lenscratch Magazine, Interview with Brian Ulrich | 2024
- Opt West Magazine, Issue 3 | 2023
- Spoon River Poetry Review, Issue 48.1, | 2023 Luna Collective Magazine | 2023
- Opt West Magazine, Issue 2 | 2023
- Analog Forever Zine, Street Scenes/Streets, Seen | 2023
- Hyperallergic, Nazafarin Lotfi: Dreams Up a Borderless Future | 2023
- DoNorth Magazine, Summer 2019 – Spring 2021
Awards:
- Things We Carry, Best in Show, Studio Montclair | 2025
- Photo Triennial, Runner-up, Galesburg Art Center | 2025
- McLean County Art Exhibition, Best in Show, McLean County Arts Center, Bloomington, IL | 2024
- Lenscratch Student Prize, Top 26, Lenscratch | 2023
- Robert Small Writing Award, Illinois State University | 2023
- Karen Deske Scholarship, Illinois State University | 2023
- Karolee Johnson Memorial Award, Student Annual exhibition, Illinois State University | 2023
- Image of Research, Runner-up, Illinois State University | 2022
- Barbara J. Parnass Scholarship in Photography, SUNY Plattsburgh | 2021
- Winkle Scholarship of the Art, SUNY Plattsburgh | 2018 – 2020
- B.F.A., Photography and Graphic Design - State University of New York at Plattsburgh
- M.F.A., Photography - Illinois State University