Jon-Phillip Sheridan

Department Chair

Department of Photography + Film

Jon-Phillip Sheridan served as assistant chair of Photography + Film for nine years and is currently the chair. Sheridan has had solo exhibitions at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA; and Heiner Contemporary, Washington, DC. Sheridan has received two VMFA fellowships, most recently in 2020, and was honored by Oxford American as a Top 100 Emerging Southern Artist. Sheridan has been featured in many group exhibitions including Declaration, the inaugural exhibition of the Institute for Contemporary Art, Richmond, VA;  Anti Grand at University of Richmond Museums; and Looking at The Land at the RISD Museum; Providence, RI. His work has been in the US State Department’s Art in Embassies program and is included in the collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Markel Corporation, Capital One and the Federal Reserve Bank.

In addition to his photographic work Sheridan has developed an artistic, pedagogical, and activist practice that investigates art as a site of collaboration–a method to increase perception, and knowledge-production in relation to the impacts of the global warming on local communities. 

He has engaged in multimedia work that explores the mechanics of this warming with the goal of making complex phenomena feelable.

He is interested in collaborations with students, educators, community organizers, climate scientists, biologists and engineers in developing projects that prepare cities for the global warming crisis. 

Sheridan received his BFA in photography from the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.