Jesse Bonnell is a multidisciplinary artist and director working in live performance, and film. With a background in theater, Bonnell’s original performance and video works draw upon a variety of source material, germinating within visual art vocabularies, cinema, and non-hierarchical collaboration.

His work investigates how ritualized American culture, constructs of collectivity and spaces inform and shape our psyche. 

His latest on-going body of work, titled, Flag Semaphores, is an ongoing series of creative interventions with communities outside of major cities. This new commission was presented at the second  Una Boccata d'Arte, a program of Galleria Continua, and  part of the first performance artist in residency at Castello San Basilio, Italy. 

His work has been presented at institutions such as REDCAT, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, South Coast Rep, The Getty Villa, The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (EMPAC), and the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA (CAPUCLA). Internationally, his work has been presented in Italy, Croatia, Poland, and Serbia, including B.I.T.E.F. Theater, Valjevo National Theatre,  Uzice National Theatre, Pula International Theater Festival, and the International Grotowski Festival. From 2018 - 2019 he was an Artist in Residence at CAP UCLA.

Bonnell has received major support from Theater Communications Group (TCG), United States Embassy Belgrade, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, The Grotowski Institute, The Ahmanson Foundation, Center for Cultural Innovation ARC, Creative Capacity Fund, Next Gen Arts Grant, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The Dutch Cultural Consulate, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Foundation for Contemporary Art, Fondazione Elpisand, and Creative Capital. 

He has been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship, and other residencies at REDCAT, Yaddo, Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Headlands Center for the Arts, Abrons Art Center, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, among others. His work has been written about in the American Theater Magazine, Theater Magazine, Beautiful Savage Magazine, and Theater Journal. Bonnell is an Acting Company Alumni founded by John Housman at Juilliard. Bonnell co-founded Poor Dog Group, a contemporary theater collective based in Los Angeles, with which he served as Lead Artist from 2008-2018. Bonnell earned an MFA from CalArts for which he received the prestigious Lilian Disney Scholarship Award. He recently has given art talks about his work on collectivity at NYU Theater and Health Forum and CCA Annual Conference.  He is a recurring guest lecturer at NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

Bonnell lives in Brooklyn, NY.