Jillian Mayer

• Name — Jillian Mayer • Born — 24 June 1984 • Birthplace — Miami, Florida, U.S. • Education — Florida International University • Occupation — Performance Artist, Sculptor, Filmmaker • Years Active — 2010–present • Notable Works — I Am Your Grandma, Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke, 400 Nudes, Slumpies • Website — JillianMayer.net

Jillian Mayer was born in Miami in 1984 and graduated with a BFA from Florida International University in 2007.

Soon after graduating from college, Mayer was commissioned to create an experimental performance for Miami Light Project's 2010 Here & Now theater festival. The result was a short satirical musical called Mrs. Ms in which Mayer attempts to marry her pet Chihuahua, only to discover that he has been unfaithful. Also in 2010, she created a series of painted cut-out boards called "Getting to Know You", similar to cut out board scenes, including a series of photos posing with the boards.

Mayer's first solo show "Family Matters" opened in April 2011 at the David Castillo Gallery: a multimedia installation, it explored the "artificial worlds of '90s sitcoms" through sculptures and videos, including I Am Your Grandma which would later go viral on YouTube. "Erasey Page" was an interactive exhibit Mayer created, which gave the audience a chance to "erase" a website of their choice. It opened in April 2012 at the Bass Museum in Miami. Mayer also created 2013's "Precipice/PostModem" at Locust Projects in Miami, which was an installation that built upon her short film #PostModem. Mayer worked on a project titled "400 Nudes", for which she selected four hundred nude selfies of women of all ages, shapes, and races from the pool of millions available on the Internet. She then staged photo shoots to remake them, digitally altering the composite photos to realistically replace the original faces with her own. To explore the gaps, as well as the overlaps, between different networks of image consumption, she then re-uploaded the photos to various platforms on the net. "400 Nudes" premiered at the La Biennale de Montreal on October 22, 2014. Mayer was commissioned by the Miami International Airport in 2018 to create the installation "Still Life Scans", a series of photos taken using the TSA's airport x-ray scanners. In 2016 Mayer debuted a series of colorful sculptures she called "Slumpies", which are specially designed for users to slump on while staring at their smartphones. They have been exhibited internationally, including at Kunsthal Aarhus, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, EXPO Chicago, University of California, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Mayer is represented by David Castillo Gallery. In 2023, Mayer was a contestant on The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist, a reality TV series that aired on MTV and the Smithsonian Channel. Literature Mayer's work has been discussed in Code as Creative Medium (MIT Press), Dark Matters On the Surveillance of Blackness (Duke University Press), Paradox: The Body in the Age of AI (Carnegie Mellon), The Masquerade: A Panorama and the textbook Gateways to Art (Thames & Hudson).

Mayer has said that she intentionally conceals her real birthday from the public by using different dates on each social media platform.

• Year — Film — Type — Notes — Link • 2010 — Scenic Jogging — Short film — • 2011 — I Am Your Grandma — Short film — with Lucas Leyva — • 2011 — Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke — Short film — with Lucas Leyva — • 2011 — Jacuzzi Boys: Glazin — Short film — with Lucas Leyva — • 2013 — #PostModem — Short film — with Lucas Leyva — • 2013 — Adventures of Christopher Bosh in the Multiverse! — Short film — with Lucas Leyva — • 2015 — Cool as Ice 2 — Short film — with Lucas Leyva • 2015 — Hot Beach Babe Aims to Please — Short film — • 2015 — No Seasons — Web series — with Lucas Leyva — • 2017 — Kaiju Bunraku — Short film — with Lucas Leyva — • 2020 — Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia — Feature film — co-writer and co-director