Raised and educated in St. Louis, Missouri, photographer and filmmaker Janelle Jones trained in fine art and semiotics, the heady study of how meaning is conveyed and understood through spoken and unspoken signs and symbols. Even as a child Janelle was a maker and gatherer, using whatever resources she unearthed as part of her hands-on creative explorations.

Janelle’s still life, dance and portraiture images for prestige editorial clients and brands are both analytical and precise. Generating and executing ideas from her Brooklyn-based studio, she approaches the work both as director and creator, always focused on the implicit narrative whether in stills or motion.

With wide-ranging influences, from the Surrealist movement of the 1920s to the dry humor of Gene Wilder, her pictures can challenge the laws of physics and logic in what she calls a “bendy reality.” Often anthropomorphic, with voluptuous forms rooted in her dance training, she is open, patient and experimental in her distinctive point-of-view.

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