Jamil Hellu

Jamil Hellu is a Lecturer in Art Practice at Stanford University. Originally from Brazil, he is a queer, multiracial lens-based artist whose work investigates intersections of identity, sexuality, and cultural lineage through photography, video, installations, and screen-printing. His practice challenges patriarchal and colonial visual narratives while exploring fluidity in gender and heritage.

• MFA in Art Practice, Stanford University
• BFA in Photography, San Francisco Art Institute

His projects like Hues and Justice for who address systemic discrimination, reclaiming marginalized identities through collaborative portraiture and archival subversion. Hellu often inverts the photographer-subject dynamic, inserting himself into images to confront societal binaries.

Selected honors include the 2018 Eureka Fellowship, Kala Art Institute Fellowship, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Fellowship. Hellu has participated in residencies at Recology, Headlands Center for the Arts, and The Space Program in San Francisco. Recent exhibitions include All Ways Lead to the Mill (Oakland, 2016) and Dismantling Monoliths (2022).

Collaborations with queer communities across the San Francisco Bay Area, Mexico City, and Canada underscore his commitment to collective storytelling. His Odyssey series (2022–ongoing) reimagines identity as a process of transformation, drawing from personal experiences of anti-effeminate oppression and diasporic displacement.