Jean-François Bouchard has worked in lens-based visual art since 2003. He travels the world and seeks out people whose interests and lifestyles are out of the ordinary. He celebrates difference by focusing on marginalized, misunderstood, and often ostracized groups of people. Working at the intersection of documentary work and subjective cinematic conceptual storytelling, he aims to immerse viewers into the lives of his subjects while sharing his own emotional journeys into these worlds. His practice blends photography, video installations, and occasionally found objects.

His work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and festivals in Canada, the United States, and France. His projects have been shown at Arsenal Contemporary Art in New York, Montreal, and Toronto. His works are featured in a book published by The Magenta Foundation. Artnet selected the In Guns We Trust exhibition as a “Must-see show in NYC,” while ArtForum selected his Exile from Babylon exhibition as an “Editor’s Pick” in early 2023.

His photographs have been published in The Washington Post, Stern Magazine, Wired, The British Journal of Photography, and many others. He is a winner of the Nannen Prize in Germany.

His upcoming project, The New Cubans, will be published by PowerHouse Books of New York City (co-published in French by Éditions André Frère) and exhibited in numerous cities worldwide from late 2024 to 2025.

Bouchard lives in New York City and Montréal.

SOLO
EXHIBITIONS

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

AWARDS

Life Framer
Night Life - Winner - March 2021

Dallas Center of Photography Portrait Award
Second Place - December 2020

Head On Photo Award
Finalist, Transpose—May 2018. Australia.

Nannen Prize
Prize winner, Transpose—April 2017. Germany.

Pride Photo Award
Transpose—2015

Concours Lux
1st prize—2010. Montréal.

The Big Book
Shortlisted work, Secret Societies—June 3rd to June 9th, 2011. Cannes.

PRESS

Artforum
Exile from Babylon: A Must-See Exhibition (Editor’s Pick)—February 2023

Artnet news
Here Are 22 Unmissable Spring Gallery Shows in New York, From Joan Mitchell’s Big Moment to Jeff Wall’s Spooky Surrealism—May 2019.

Whitehot Magazine
”Normally Invisible”- April 2023

ARToronto
“Jean-François Bouchard at Arsenal Contemporary” - July 2023
Also published in dART and Art Fuse

FeatureShoot
”Lightpainting Photography from a Squatters’ Camp in California” - February 2023

Fisheye Magazine
”In Guns We Trust”: Immersion en plein champs de tirs
2023

The Washington Post
A photographer explores American gun culture deep in the Arizona desert—April 2019.

British Journal of Photography
In Guns We Trust—May 2019.

WIRED
Meet Americas’s Biggest Machine-Gun Enthusiasts—April 2019.

Urbania
In Guns We Trust : Immersion dans les champs de tirs de machine guns—May 2019.

Il maschile del Sole 24 ORE
Qui crediamo molto nelle pistole—May 2019.

Stern Magazine
Transpose win a prize at the Nannen Prize—April 2017. Germany. Stern Magazine dedicated a 10-page feature to the Transpose series—July 2016.

FRAMES Magazine
Beauty and Despair - February 2021

METAL Magazine
A Witness of the Human Condition - May 2019

Advocate
The Bare Truths of Trans Men—May 2015.

The Georgia Straight
Montreal photographer highlights transgender men in Transpose—June 2015.

National Post
Transpose captures the personal stories of trans men—May 2015.

La Presse
Critique of the exhibition at Arsenal in Montreal in the digital edition of La Presse Plus—April 19th, 2014.

Voir
Still Life, Vague de scandales—June 2012.

Actuphoto
Still Life—August 2012.

Miami New Time
Still Life, Jean-François Bouchard Brings Portraits of Sex Toys to Sleepless Night—November 2011.

Checkout Art
Still Life, One less lonely man—February 2010.