Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis

In Pictures for Charis, American photographer Kelli 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. Connell weaves together the stories of Wilson and Weston with her own and enriches our understanding of the couple from her contemporary Queer and feminist perspective.

This exhibition features recent portrait and landscape photographs by Connell along with classic figure studies and landscapes by Weston from 1934–1945 one of his most productive periods and the span of his relationship with Wilson. Using Weston and Wilson publications as a guide, Connell and her partner at the time, Betsy Odom, traveled to locales where Wilson and Weston lived, made work, and spent time together creating new artworks in the process.

This exhibition is co-organized by the Center for Creative Photography; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The monograph Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis (2024) is co-published by the Center for Creative Photography and Aperture Foundation  and brings together Connell’s text, portraits of Odom, new landscape views, and original materials by both Wilson and Weston.