Jesse Bonnell

b. 1985 Neuchâtel, Switzerland Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA jdbonnell@gmail.com

Jesse Bonnell is an interdisciplinary artist working across visual mediums including painting, drawing, film, video, writing, and performance. His work has been presented at institutions such as REDCAT, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, South Coast Rep, The Getty Villa, The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and CAP UCLA. Internationally, his work has toured Eastern Europe, performing in Croatia, Poland, and Serbia, and was presented at the 2009 Grotowski Festival. From 2018 - 2019 he was an Artist in Residence at CAP UCLA which commissioned and presented his most recent piece titled, Group Therapy.

Bonnell has received major support from Theater Communications Group (TCG), United States Embassy Belgrade, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, The Grotowski Institute, The Ahmanson Foundation, Center for Cultural Innovation, Creative Capacity Fund, Next Gen Arts Grant, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The Dutch Cultural Consulate, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Foundation for Contemporary Art, and Creative Capital. 

He has been awarded a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and other residencies at REDCAT, Yaddo, Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Headlands Center for the Arts, Abrons Art Center, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, among others. His work has been written about in the American Theater Magazine, Theater Magazine, Beautiful Savage Magazine, and Theater Journal. Bonnell is an Acting Company Alumni performing at the Guthrie Theater and he is an inaugural member of the APAP Artist Institute created by Liz Lerman, and Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Bonnell co-founded  Poor Dog Group, a theater collective based in Los Angeles, with which he served as Founding Artistic Director from 2008-2018. He recently has given art talks about his work on collectivity at NYU Theater and Health Forum and CCA Annual Conference.  He holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, for which he received the Lillian Disney Scholarship.

“Bonnell’s creative track record is undeniably impressive”

- LA TIMES

“Creepy, oddly familiar, and mesmerizing all at the same time”

-KCRW

“Beautifully orchestrated”

-LA WEEKLY