EDUCATION
- UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER, PhD Candidate, Media Studies, anticipated 2024
- UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA LAW SCHOOL, Juris Doctorate, 2013
- RICE UNIVERSITY, Bachelor of Arts, 2009
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS/PERFORMANCES
Conceptual/Visual Projects
- Colecciondm, Public Collection Group Show (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Upcoming
- Flux Factory Art Auction, group show, EFA Project Space (NY, NY), 2019
- Sunday Painter, Group Exhibition, Flux Factory (Queens, NY), 2019
- Certifying Reality, Consensual Listening (Installation), Flux Factory (Queens, NY), 2019
- Fay Chandler Award Show, Group Exhibition, Boston City Hall, 2018
- FOMO, Group Exhibition curated by Keiken Collective, Falmouth Art Publishing Fair (Falmouth, UK), 2018
- The Gig Economy, Group Show curated by Robert Moeller, Boston Center for the Arts, 2017
- From URL To IRL, Search Me/The Archive, Space One Two One (Boston), 2017
- Home (Queering), Group Exhibition, Distillery Gallery (Boston), 2017
- Group Show, Selection of Five Local Painters, Work Bar (Cambridge, MA), 2015
- Juried Regional Competition, The Library Arts Center (Newport, NH), 2014
- Spring Show, Juried Group Exhibition, StoveFactory Gallery (Charlestown, MA), 2014
- Inspirations, Juried Group Exhibition, Cape Cod Center for the Arts (Barnstable, MA), 2014
- 30 Under 30 Boston Emerging Artists, Arsenal Center for the Arts (Watertown, MA), 2014
Performances/Readings/Screenings
- Carbonated Projections , screening/performance curated by Frankie Symonds, Synesthesia Gallery (Bushwick, NY), 2019
- Flux Factory Takeover: Poetry, HOLO (NYC), 2019
- The Great Flux Bake-Off (co-host), Flux Factory (NYC), 2019
- Women Rhyme, 13 Forest Gallery (Arlington, MA), 2018
- Search Me (Notes) performance, Allston Living Room (Allston, MA), 2018
- Queer Poetry, curated by Amanda Accardi, Area Gallery (Cambridge, MA), 2018
- Crying in Public Project, public performance, Christopher Columbus Park (Boston, MA), 2018
- FOMO performance, Consensual Voyeurism, Boston Center For the Arts, 2017
- Search Me (Facebook) performance, Space One Two One (Boston), 2017
SELECTED CURATORIAL PROJECTS
- Certifying Reality, Group Exhibition, Flux Factory, NYC (2019), Curator
- Sunday Painter, Group Exhibition, Flux Factory, NYC (2019), Co-Curator
- Certifying Poetry, Group Performance, Flux Factory, NYC (2019), Co-Curator
- Stories, Secrets, Sepsis, Frankie Symonds Solo Exhibition, Space One Two One, Boston (2018), Curator
- Lactic Incorporated, Public Performance, Space One Two One, Boston (2018), Curator
- Lurking Behind My Teeth, Janet Loren Hill Solo Exhibition, Space One Two One, Boston (2018), Curator
- Piecemeal, Gem Rosenberg Solo Exhibition, Space One Two One, Boston (2017), Curator
- Pop Up, Group Exhibition, Space One Two One, Boston (2017), Curator
- From URL TO IRL, Group Exhibition, Space One Two One, Boston (2017), Curator
- Body Politic, Group Exhibition, Gallery OPEN, Boston (2017), Exhibition Design
- Re.volt.ing (an art show in protest), Group Exhibition, Distillery Gallery, Boston (2017), Sub-Curator
- Inevitable Ephemera, Afra Al Dhaheri Solo Exhibition, T+H Gallery, Boston (2016), Co-Curator
- A Certain Shape, Mitch Shiles Solo Exhibition, T+H Gallery, Boston (2016), Assistant Curator
- Partial Visibility, Alicia Eggert Soo Exhibition, T+H Gallery, Boston (2016), Assistant Curator
- Close To Me, Stephanie McMahon Solo Exhibition, T+H Gallery, Boston (2016), Assistant Curator
- Sojourn, Ian McMahon Solo Exhibition, T+H Gallery, Boston (2016), Assistant Curator
- Cosmic Cosmetologist, Kelley Donahue Solo Exhibition, T+H Gallery, Boston (2016), Assistant Curator
- Slow Ghost, Ashley Lyon Solo Exhibition, T+H Gallery, Boston (2015), Assistant Curator
- Typology Morphology, Group Exhibition, T+H Gallery (collaboration with Institute for Electronic Arts), Boston (2015), Assistant Curator
AWARDS/RECOGNITIONS
- Top Ten Selection (curator), Apex Art Internationally Juried Curatorial Exhibition, 2020
- Artist/Curator-in-Residence, Flux Factory, 2019
- Fay Chandler Emerging Artist Award, City of Boston, 2018
- 2017 Best Art Shows Selection (From URL To IRL), Boston Art Review, 2017
- Best Art Shows of 2017 (From URL To IRL), Boston Hassle, 2017
- Painting (NYE, 2013) Featured in Film, “Ella”, Produced by Armani, 2014
- 30 Under 30 Emerging Artist (Greater Boston Area) Award, Selected by Katherine French, 2014
- 2nd Prize in Painting, Cape Cod Center for the Arts (Barnstable, MA), 2014
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe, "Queer Cats Takes to Local Public Access Television ", Boston Art Review, Issue 05, Spring 2020 (forthcoming)
- Kylie Terra Burnham, “Top 10 Events For Helping A Young Queer Woman...Find Art And Community” (#3), Boston Hassle, January 1, 2019
- Mallory Ruymann, “Janet Loren Hill at Space One Two One”, The Rib, April 1, 2018.
- Jameson Johnson, “The New Domestic with Janet Loren Hill and Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe, Boston Art Review, Issue 01, Spring 2018.
- BAR Editorial, "In Conversation: Janet Loren Hill and Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe in SPACE ONE TWO ONE, Boston Art Review, Vimeo, 2018.
- Lani Asuncion, “Janet Loren Hill Speaks With Lani Asuncion About Her Exhibition “Lurking Behind My Teeth”, Boston Hassle, March 20, 2018.
- Jameson Johnson, "2017 Year in Review: Art Edition", Boston Hassle, January 8, 2017.
- Amelia Mason, "5 Things To Do This Weekend...", WBUR, November 8, 2017.
- Silvia Beier, “Piecemeal, A Collage Show By Gem Rosenberg, Curated by Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe”, Boston Hassle, September 4, 2017.
- Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe, "Emilie Stark-Menneg", International Art Magazine, 2017
- Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe, "Studio Visit with Rebecca Ness", International Art Magazine, 2017
- Suzanne Volmer, "Eggert at T+H Gallery", Artscope Magazine, August 31, 2016.
- Shana Dumont, "Buoyed By Color At Stephanie McMahon's Solo Exhibition at T+H Gallery, New American Paintings, July, 2016.
- Cate McQuaid, "Ian McMahons' Pillowy Plaster Sculpture To Meet Its End", Boston Globe, April 11, 2016.
- Robert Moeller, "Someone Will Build Something Somewhere: Ian McMahon at T+H Gallery", Big Red And Shiny, April 7, 2016.
- Cate McQuaid, "New Galleries Blossom at 460 Harrison Ave", Boston Globe, November 17, 2015.
- Tatiana Berg, "Must-See Art Guide Boston", ArtNet News, December 17, 2015.
RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
CURATOR/ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE, February - June 2019
Flux Factory, New York, NY
- Curated a six-person show, Certifying Reality, focusing on artists working in diverse media, contemplating the blurred line between IRL and URL - our mediated realities, especially the social media gaze and screen as lens (but not necessarily as medium).
- Created a new immersive installation, Consensual Listening, utilizing a year of voice memos as material.
- Performed studio visits with current residents that resulted in a residency show, Sunday Painter. Attended weekly residency meetings to discuss current projects, shows, etc. Regular studio visits with curators.
- Curated Sunday Painter (including 13 resident artists), an exhibition that examined atypical mediums, outside of the scope of the artist’s conventional practice.
Space One Two One, Boston, MA, April 2017- 2019
www.spaceonetwoone.com
- Founding Director of domestic gallery project focusing on elevating/collaborating with underrepresented contemporary artists (primary focus on queer women/non-binary persons), and promoting experimental concepts and aesthetics, by providing a platform that is not beholden to the traditional gallery structure.
- Curate critically recognized exhibitions in: The Rib (national contemporary art magazine), Boston Hassle, and Boston Art Review: “Interview: The New Domestic with Janet Loren Hill and Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe”.
- Write exhibition statements, conduct art historical and contemporary research, perform regular studio visits in the Boston area to keep a pulse on the local contemporary art scene and give critical feedback to artists.
T+H Gallery, Boston, MA, October 2015 – January 2017
- Founding member of gallery, serving directly under owner/director.
- Curated critically recognized exhibitions including write-ups in: Boston Globe, Artscope, BR&S, Art New England, New American Paintings & Art Net News.
- Cultivate essential relationships with collectors/press/art administrators/museums/artists.
- Build gallery’s presence and enhanced reputation through press releases and Social Media venues, receiving positive coverage for dynamic exhibitions, reviews, and selections.
UA Law School, Tuscaloosa, AL., January-May 2013
- Presented thirty-page paper focusing on legal issues pertaining to stolen works of art during World War II: “Recovering Nazi Plunder”.
- USD Law School, Florence, Italy (May-July 2012)
- Examined legal and ethical principles affecting visual art from contemporary works to cultural artifacts.
- Problems focused on tax opportunities/obligations, moral/resale rights, government’s ability to regulate the ownership/export of works, assurances of authenticity/title and responsibilities of government toward artworks in time of war.
- Included various trips to museums, auction houses and historical monuments for more in-depth study.
ARTS-BASED RESEARCH PRACTICE (Media Studies)
March 2017- Present
www.roryfitzgeraldbledsoe.com
Curatorial/Conceptual arts-based research practice focused on digital labor, political economy of communication, intimacy and
surveillance in the post-smartphone age.
- Petrified Purse (Curator, Upcoming): Petrified Purse is an archaeological site for the excess of late stage capitalism and commodified “femininitude” (see: Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl (Tiqqun), an excavation of Flora Wilds' multi-media work utilizing reused clothing and accessory as intimate archive, consumerist archaelogy and archetypes.
- Certifying Reality (Curator, Flux Factory, April 2019, ): Six artists working in diverse media contemplate the blurred line between physical and constructed worlds. Works ranging from sculpture to video, examine notions surrounding self-mythology, data curation and digital labor. Themes include: surveillance, the quotidian, personal narrative and intimacy (digital and queer) - inextricably tied to the post-smartphone age. Certifying Reality engages with and underscores the artifice of our cyborg existence.
- Consensual Listening (Flux Factory, April 2019): Consensual Listening is an interactive installation and continuing project. Materials for the tapes are sourced from my personal archives, specifically, Voice Memos. They are intimate audio collages intermingling: field recordings, self-surveillance, reenactments of self-surveillance (i.e., dramatized text message exchange), recordings of performance work and constructed materials (i.e., monologue). Consensual Listening questions our contemporary notions of simulation, creation and appropriation.
- Crying in Public Project (Public Performance, March 2018-Present): Interactive performance piece, where strangers are the participants, asked to film me with my phone. This performance of vulnerability aimed to explore how the lens acts as an emotional anesthetic.
- From URL To IRL (Curator, Space One Two One, March-April, 2017): Interactive exhibition exploring the blurring of our physical and digital worlds. This included a performance of “Search Me”, “The Archive”, and a live durational performance of a mini Facebook Newsfeed (with five performers).
- Consensual Voyeurism (Boston Center for the Arts, 11/17-1/18): A multi-faceted interactive installation including data printed from multiple social media mediums and emoji prints made by reducing actual intimate messages from partners to their emoji vestiges. This continued my research on data invasion and surveillance.
- Search Me (13 Forest Gallery, 2018, Allston Living Room Project, 2018, Space One Two One, 2017): Performance utilizing my private Facebook messages and then later my iPhone Notes app, functioning as a personal search engine, fielding queries and publicly revealing digital snippets from this intimate data.
- The Archive (Boston City Hall, 108, Space One Two One, 2017): Interactive installation of my entire Facebook history printed onto thousands of pages filling file folders and boxes with categories of data (including a box devoted to everything I have ever liked), and books (including records of the advertising data Facebook possessed - Adwords that summed up my digital profile. Participants were instructed to invade the archive, exploring how physically manifesting data/labor affects cognitive dissonance, also examined what data Facebook found most valuable.