Kelli Connell (born 1974) is an American

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

photographer. Connell is known for creating portraits, which may appear as

self-portrait Self-portraits are Portrait painting, portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, the practice of self-portraiture only gaining momentum in the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century ...

s. Her work is held in the collections of the

Columbus Museum of Art The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Formed in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (its name until 1978), it was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio. The museum collec ...

, the

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

, the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

, the

Museum of Fine Arts Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follo ...

, the

Museum of Contemporary Photography A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers ...

and the

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the A ...

Early life and education

Kelli Connell was born in 1974 in

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

.> Connell took her first photography class as a junior in high school, and was influenced early on by the work of

Roni Horn Roni Horn (born September 25, 1955) is an American visual artist and writer. The granddaughter of Eastern European immigrants, she was born in New York City, where she lives and works. She is currently represented by Xavier Hufkens in Brussels an ...

, Francesca Woodman, and

Larry Sultan Larry Sultan (July 13, 1946 – December 13, 2009) was an American photographer from the San Fernando Valley in California. He taught at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1978 to 1988 and at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco 1 ...

. She received her BFA in Photography and Visual Arts Studies at the

University of North Texas The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public university, public research university located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Its main campus is in Denton, Texas, Denton, with a satellite campus in Frisco, Texas, Frisco. It serves as the ...

. In 2003, Connell received her Masters in Fine Arts in Photography and a minor in Art history from

Texas Woman’s University Texas Woman's University (TWU) is a public coeducational research university in Denton, Texas, with two health science center-focused campuses in Dallas and Houston. While TWU has been fully co-educational since 1994, it is the largest state-sup ...

Artistic career

Connell became a photographer to explore how photography can raise questions. In 2011, Decode Books released her first

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

, ''Double Life,'' in which she presented 36 color photographs of two young women occupied in their day to day activities of pleasure and reflection. ''Double Life'' seeks to question ideas of identity,

gender roles A gender role, or sex role, is a social norm deemed appropriate or desirable for individuals based on their gender or sex. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity. The specifics regarding these gende ...

, and expectations made by society on the individual. The series, which depicts a woman in a

romantic relationship Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions. The ''Wiley Blackwell En ...

with herself, shows the "couple" having intimate and private moments in their lives. Connell uses her art to define the multiple sides of the self in the overall human experience. The portraits are also a case of identity. Connell worked with the same model over a series of years to produce the work. She is currently a professor at

Columbia College Chicago Columbia College Chicago is a Private college, private art college in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1890, it has 6,493 students (as of fall 2021) pursuing degrees in more than 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. It i ...

Collections

*"Carnival", 2006,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, New York City *

Group Exhibitions

* ''FEEL ME'', Trapholt Museum of Modern Art and Design, Denmark, 2024 * ''Gorgeousness'', Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY, 2024 * ''o_ Man!'', Kelli Connell and Natalie Krick, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA, 2024 * ''Traces on the Landscape'',

Princeton University Art Museum The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 117,000 work ...

, Princeton, NJ, 2023 * ''All Roads are Open:'' ''Traveling Women Photographers'' Kunstforum Hermann Stenner, Bielefeld, Germany, 2023 * ''OFF-SPRING: New Generations,'' 21c Museum, Chicago, IL, 2023 * ''Refracting Histories,'' Museum ''of Contemporary'' Photography, Chicago, IL, 2022 * ''Rewriting Art History,'' Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, WA, 2022 * ''Gaze Maze II: Seeing Double,'' Elsa Art Space, Bielefeld, Germany, 2022 * ''~~Tomorrow~~, and ~~Tomorrow~~, and ~~Tomorrow,~~'' The Design Museum of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2022 * ''Collaborating with the Archive,'' Filter Photo, Chicago, IL, 2021 * ''Selections from the Permanent Collection: Contemporary Art,'' Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, 2021 * ''Keeper of the Hearth'', Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX, 2020

Solo Exhibitions

Center for Creative Photography The Center for Creative Photography (CCP), established in 1975 and located on the University of Arizona's Tucson campus, is a research facility and archival repository containing the full archives of over sixty of the most famous American ph ...

, Tucson, AZ Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, 2025 *

, Atlanta, GA, 2024 *Pictura Gallery, Bloomington, IN Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA, 2023 *

Sheldon Museum of Art The Sheldon Museum of Art is an art museum in the city of Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Previously called the University of Nebraska Art Galleries and later the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, the institution ...

, Lincoln, NE Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR, 2022 *Center for Photography Woodstock, NY Alice Austen House, Staten Island, NY, 2021 *''Double Life,''

, Columbus, Ohio, 2004 *''Kelli Connell: Photographs,'' Kendall College of Art and Design,

Ferris State University Ferris State University (FSU or Ferris) is a public university with its main campus in Big Rapids, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1884 as Big Rapids Industrial School by Woodbridge N. Ferris and became a public institution in 1950. ...

, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2009

Interviews

* ''Kelli Connell'' - Episode 73, PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, February 29, 2024 * Q+A: Kelli Connell, Strange Fire with Jess T. Dugan, January 4, 2018

Publications

*''Double Life.'' Seattle: Decode 2011. With Susan Bright. . *''Pictures for Charis''. Aperture 2024. .

Personal life

Connell is married to sculptor Betsy Odom.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Connell, Kelli 1974 births American contemporary artists Photographers from Oklahoma Columbia College Chicago faculty Artists from Oklahoma City University of North Texas alumni American women photographers Living people American lesbian artists American women academics LGBTQ people from Oklahoma 21st-century American photographers 21st-century American women artists