JAN RATTIA

Jan Rattia is a Caracas-born artist and educator whose work examines belonging, representation, and otherness through contemporary photography and installation. Working across figuration, domestic interiors, and the landscape, his practice considers how images construct relational meaning—how they circulate, accumulate, and come to inhabit specific histories and places. Rooted in personal narrative and cultural displacement, his work proposes a fluid understanding of home while engaging critically with the aesthetic and political inheritances of the medium.

Rattia left Venezuela and moved to the United States at twenty. He studied and worked in international business for a decade before relocating to New York to pursue his artistic practice. These formative experiences shape his understanding of systems and of how value and visibility are produced—perspectives that inform both his artwork and his teaching. His photographs have been exhibited, published, and collected internationally, including solo exhibitions in New York, Houston, and Philadelphia. His work is held in public and private collections, including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. He has been a studio artist at Atlanta Contemporary and a fellowship recipient at the Houston Center for Photography.

He earned an MFA in Photography after graduate study at Bard College–International Center of Photoraphy and Pratt Institute in New York. From 2021 to 2024, he served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute. His pedagogy and artistic research function as intertwined practices grounded in sustained critical inquiry. He is currently based in Chicago.

Untitled (Alex and Riko).