Jon Malis is an interdisciplinary artist investigating the representation and display of visual content, focusing on how various methods of presentation and production can alter the viewer’s perception, interpretation, and experience of photography and visual culture. His current works seek to provide a physical definition of digital photography, creating images and sculptural forms based upon how computer color and digital processing unconsciously transforms imagery.

He has received numerous awards and recognitions such as the National Photography Award from the von Lebig Art Center (Naples, FL), DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities Artist Fellowship grants, semi-final nominations for the Lumen International Prize in Digital Art, Janet & Walter Sondheim and the Trawick prizes and a Panavision New Filmmaker’s Grant. His work has been exhibited extensively in the Washington, DC region, nationally, and internationally; reviewed in the Washington Post and Naples Daily News; and featured on Maryland Public TV and PBS. Recently, he has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Otis College of Art & Design (Los Angeles, CA) and the Slade School of Art in London.

As an academic, he melds his research into the classroom environment, challenging his photography students not just to understand what they’re taking pictures of, but to understand how their work is viewed. He currently holds an appointment as an Associate Professor of Visual Art and is the Program Director for Photography at Loyola University Maryland (Baltimore, MD). Formerly, he has worked as a freelance cinematographer and producer for narrative and documentary film/video productions, and was a staff photojournalist for ThisWeek News/Columbus Dispatch Publishing Company, and the Piqua (OH) Daily Call newspaper. Additionally, Malis owned and operated TUBE Studio, which provided digital photographic printing, display, production and consulting services for artists and photographers. He received a Master of Fine Arts in Film & Electronic Media from American University in 2011, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art from The George Washington University in 2007.