Over the past decade, American photographer Kelli Connell (born 1974) has delved into the lives and relationship of writer Charis Wilson (American, 1914–2009) and photographer Edward Weston (American, 1886–1958). Drawing from Wilson’s writings and Weston’s iconic photographs, Connell retraced the paths the couple once traveled, visiting the locations where they lived and created work together. Accompanied by her partner at the time, Betsy Odom (born 1980), Connell followed in Wilson and Weston’s footsteps through the American West, mirroring their explorations from approximately eighty years earlier and culminating in their landmark book California and the West (1940). Throughout this journey, Connell photographically collaborated with Odom, thereby challenging traditional power dynamics that typically place the photographer in a dominant role.
Currently on display at The High Museum in Atlanta, this exhibition presents a juxtaposition of Connell’s recent photographs alongside Weston’s classic figure studies and landscapes from 1934 to 1945. As the exhibition unfolds, the voices of Connell and Wilson engage in a meaningful dialogue with the original prints, inviting visitors to reflect on the complexities of individual narratives that can easily become oversimplified, generalized, or misremembered.
The exhibition also features excerpts from the accompanying monograph Pictures for Charis by Kelli Connell, set to be published by Aperture and the Center for Creative Photography in 2024.
