HSC&A / Online Artist Talk

Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis

Presented by: Photographic Arts Council Los Angeles

Thursday, March 13 at 3:00 PM

Join us for an online artist lecture with Kelli Connell, where she will discuss her most recent body of photographs, Pictures for Charis, currently on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Kelli will address photographer-sitter dynamics, gender, identity and sexuality with respect to her project— inspired by Charis Wilson’s relationship with Edward Weston. The presentation will be followed by an open Q & A moderated by Hannah Sloan.

/ About

Kelli Connell’s Pictures for Charis is loosely based on the life of Charis Wilson and the time she spent with photographer Edward Weston from 1934 - 1945. Using Through Another Lens: My Life with Edward Weston (Wilson’s autobiography) and California and the West (with text written by Wilson and images by Weston) as a guide, Pictures for Charis takes a closer look at photographer-to-sitter relationships as Kelli Connell and her previous partner, Betsy Odom, travel to diverse California locales where Wilson and Weston lived and made work together.

Pictures for Charis serves as an homage to Charis Wilson, and as a backdrop to raise questions about gender, sexuality and relationship dynamics in the twenty-first century. The monograph Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis (Aperture & Center for Creative Photography: March, 2024) includes photographs and writing by Connell as well as passages written by Wilson and photographs made by Weston.