Jane Evelyn Atwood engages with closed communities, formed through trauma and adaptation.  Through immersive long-term exploration, often spanning multiple continents, Atwood offers complex and intimate perspectives on the lives of prostitutes, incarcerated women, landmine victims, blind children and others similarly excluded by social or physical conditions. Her photographic engagement with those who have been affected directly by these situations is at a visceral level. 

While Atwood was born in New York, she has lived in France since 1971. She was the first recipient of a W. Eugene Smith Fund Grant in 1980 and a year later the International Center of Photography hosted a solo exhibition of her work. Since then, her series have been exhibited extensively throughout Europe, the US and North Africa including two major retrospectives; at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris in 2011 and at La Filature, Mulhouse in 2020.

Thirteen monographs and a play have been produced based on Atwood’s œuvres and her photographs are found in numerous public collections in France, the United States, and in Scotland.