Kelli Connell

About Episode 73

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha and photographer, Kelli Connell discuss her brand new book, Pictures for Charis, published by Aperture. Kelli talks about her fascination with and subsequent extensive research on Charis Wilson and the eleven year relationship she had with legendary photographer Edward Weston, and how what she learned guided her own exploration of portrait-making and landscape work while collaborating with her wife of fourteen years, Betsy Odom. Sasha and Kelli also discuss Kelli’s renowned series, Double Life, which also explores the relationship between photographer and model as well as gender and identity.

About Kelli Connell

Kelli Connell is an artist whose work investigates sexuality, gender, identity and photographer / sitter relationships. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, J Paul Getty Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Dallas Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Publications of her work include Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis (Aperture, March 2024), PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice (Aperture), Photo Art: The New World of Photography (Aperture), and the monograph Kelli Connell: Double Life (DECODE Books). Connell has received fellowships and residencies from The Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, PLAYA, Peaked Hill Trust, LATITUDE, Light Work, and The Center for Creative Photography. Connell is an editor at SKYLARK Editions and a professor at Columbia College Chicago.

What advice do you have for emerging photographers?

“My work often begins with questions that I can’t shake or easily answer. Allowing myself the time to reflect on these questions often requires my art practice to evolve in surprising ways. Following the form the work is calling for is often uncomfortable, and can lead to making work in new ways, which is exciting. Having passion and patience can allow work to find its own form, which is often not the form I had originally planned.”

Is there an image of yours that stands out or is a favorite?

“Like many artists, I am most interested in the images I want to make next. Translating the mind’s image, whether it be through photography or writing, is an exhilarating challenge that is full of struggle and surprise.”

Is there an image by another photographer that has influenced you in your career?

“The photographers who have most influenced my art practice are Roni Horn and Seiichi Furuya. Yet, one image that has continually stayed with me, is Sam Taylor-Johnson’s (Taylor-Wood) Sleep. A friend once gave me an exhibition poster featuring Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Sleep as a farewell gift. For the four years I lived in Youngstown, Ohio, this image hovered above my desk on a bare white wall across from the floor to ceiling windows that framed the pine trees outside and my quiet neighborhood below. While I knew little about Taylor-Johnson’s original piece, I developed a special connection to its reproduction. Often, I would sit and stare, contemplating this beautiful, sleeping man. He lay in a white room on a white bed with everything still, except for a slight blur above his chest: his aliveness evidenced by his subtle breathing during the long exposure needed for the image. I wondered who he was and if Taylor-Johnson had known him for a long time or simply found him to pose for the picture. Was he asleep after sex? Was he this strikingly androgynous when he was awake? The fairness of his skin and his long, wild hair enhanced his feminine physique. Sleep came to mirror my experience in Ohio, silent and still and white. It evoked quiet memories of watching my boyish girlfriend curled up asleep, with snow on the ground below the windows of my bedroom. Based on Hans Holbein’s The Dead Body of Christ in the Tomb, it inspires both awe and wonder while raising questions about religion, gender, and sexuality. After spending time with Sleep, what I am left with is the cocooned possibility of it all.”