Kelli Connell
(Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1974 - )
American
Kelli Connell (born Oklahoma City, 1974) is an artist whose work investigates sexuality, gender, identity, and photographer/sitter relationships. In her landmark series “Double Life” over a two-decade period, Connell photographs a single woman in two distinct roles within the same frame, exploring the complexities of queer intimacy and the interior negotiations of identity through staged domestic and social scenarios. Working primarily in color photography, Connell constructs images that feel simultaneously personal and archetypal, drawing viewers into psychological narratives about how identity is performed, witnessed, and understood. Connell has noted” Double life raises questions about the complexities of identity, sexuality, power, and gender while presenting a more fluid definition of self. As a person who feels uncomfortable with labels, I have always been interested in interrogating societal definitions of beauty, gender, and sexuality, as well as the dynamics and expectations of our roles in relationships.”
In “Pictures for Charis,” Connell reconsiders the relationship between writer Charis (pronounced CARE-iss) Wilson and photographer Edward Weston through a close examination of Wilson’s prose and Weston’s iconic photographs of the Western landscape and the female nude. The series juxtaposes Connell’s photographs with classic figure studies and landscapes by Weston from 1934 to 1945, one of his most productive periods and the span of his relationship with Wilson. The monograph Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis (2024) was copublished by Aperture and the Center for Creative Photography. It brings together Connell’s text, portraits of Odom, new landscape views, and original materials by both Wilson and Weston. Connell weaves together the stories of Wilson and Weston with that of her own relationship with her partner at the time of her series’ creation, Betsy Odom, enriching our understanding of the couple from her contemporary queer and feminist perspective. Using Weston and Wilson’s
Connell’s work has been published as part of MP3: Midwest Photographers Project (Aperture, 2006) and her monograph, Kelli Connell: Double Life, was published in 2011 by DECODE Books. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; J. Paul Getty Museum; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Columbus Museum of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; High Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; and Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Connell has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, MacDowell, Illinois Arts Council, and Center for Creative Photography, Tucson. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at PLAYA, Peaked Hill Trust, LATITUDE, Light Work, Visual Studies Workshop, and Ox-Bow. Connell teaches at Columbia College, Chicago.
Chicago, Illinois
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