JE (Liz) Solo is a writer, multi-disciplinary performance and media artist, and musician, best known for their work in East Coast music, and as a trailblazer in machinima, hybrid-reality, and live and networked performance art. They create artworks that merge traditional practices (theatre, writing) with technology, (virtual/online/game environments). Recently JE has been exploring creation using quantum computing, and Virtual Reality.

JE Solo is also the author of the novel, Phreak, (House of Zolo, 2020), shortlisted for the Writers Alliance of NL’s Fresh Fish Award, and the Write Project’s 2020 Book of the Year. JE’s collection of ten short stories, Nature, Human, (House of Zolo, 2023) is currently being produced as an audio book. Several short performance and video pieces based on stories from Nature, Human are also in production.

JE Solo is co-founder and member of the Black Bag Media Collective, the current curator/manager of the Odyssey Contemporary Art and Performance Simulators, and a musician and composer. Ensemble acts include Tallulah & The Man (with Mike Kean) (2023-  present); The Sauce (2013 – present), TrixXxie (2013 – 2017), Lizband (1993 – 2013 ), The Black Bags (2002 – 2013),  and Live Girls (2,000 – 2002). JE is co-founder and current Artistic Director of the media and performance company, Roles 4 Womxn.

JE is the recipient of the Media Arts Prize and the Dramatic Script Prize from the NL Arts and Letters Awards; the Linda Joy Award from the Atlantic Film Festival for their screenplay, the machine; a Lifetime Membership Award from MusicNL; and the East Coast Music Association’s Stompin’ Tom Connors Award for their accomplishments in music. Dozens of JE’s stage plays, videos and performance art works have been presented across Canada and around the world including at ISEA, File Electronic Language International Festival, The IOTA Institute, Women From the Future, Courts Critiques, Festival of New Dance, Resource Centre for the Arts, The Big Screen Project, Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, and the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art.

Image above from “Dance Me”, Festival of New Dance 2013. Photo by Jared Reid.

Image at the top from “Virtually Yours”, Artscape, Toronto, 2016. Photo by Mike Kean.

Image below of JE Solo and Mike Kean at the Rock Can Roll Festival, St. John’s, by Megan Fahey.