Draft:Angela Kelly (photographer)

Angela Kelly, born in 1950 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is a renowned photographer, lecturer, and writer on photography. She currently resides in the United States and is Professor Emerita in Photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY.

Kelly earned a diploma in education from Mary Ward College, University of Nottingham, England (1972); a BA in creative photography from Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham (1975); and an MA in photography from Columbia College Chicago (1987). Throughout her career, she has received numerous grants and fellowships, including those from The Arts Council of Great Britain, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Illinois Arts Council.

Kelly's work is included in international collections such as The Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, The Art Institute of Chicago, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, The Historical Society in Chicago, and The Arts Council of London, UK, as well as several private collections.

Her curatorial work, "Feminism and Photography: Three Perspectives on Photography," with Paul Hill and John Tagg, debuted at Hayward Gallery, The South Bank, London. She continued curating for another five years as vice-chair of exhibitions at the notable Randolph St. Gallery, Chicago.

Artwork
Angela Kelly's artwork explores themes of memory, history, and the human condition. Her notable series include "Lament," which investigates the traces of the 19th-century Irish famine in the contemporary Burren landscape. The series juxtaposes the archaeological remains of famine eviction villages and workhouses with images of tides and the sea, creating a poignant connection between melancholic beauty and historical tragedy.

Artist Statement
Angela Kelly's artist statement emphasizes her interest in exploring the intersections of history, memory, and identity through her photography. She aims to create visual narratives that evoke emotional responses and provoke thought, often drawing from her personal heritage and the broader socio-political context.

Early Work
Kelly's early work includes contributions to several group exhibitions and solo exhibitions that gained international recognition. Her work often addresses social issues and personal narratives, reflecting her background and experiences.

In 1987, Angela Kelly participated in the "Changing Chicago" project, which commemorated the 150th anniversary of the discovery of photography and the 50th anniversary of the Farm Security Administration documentary

In 1984, invited by the Museum of Contemporary Photography to interpret Chicago's Grant Park, Angela Kelly focused on how public signage disrupted traditional notions of beauty in the landscape, viewing the park's manufactured elements as integral to its overall design.

Catharsis: Images of Post-Conflict Belfast (2008-2012)
Belfast, Northern Ireland, has a painful history. More recently, Kelly barely recognizes the place. It is not so much the idea that Belfast has re-invented itself as part of a new Europe that intrigues her, but rather the residue or trace of what it once was and still is, coupled with a sense of the new that she finds evocative.

Kelly is interested in how photography speaks to the concept of absence as much as reality. Photographs resonate as repositories of a fragmented history, beckoning the viewer towards a new relationship with time and place. Concepts of identity, memory, and the history of place have permeated her photographic work for more than two decades. Initially, personal loss and tragedy provoked a shift in her practice from a meta-critical exploration of the documentary to a broader exploration of cultural identity itself. No less critical than former projects, her work shifted to examine the vernacular image within the context of personal and social history. This binding of the social, historical, and personal within a fine art practice has played out in subtly different yet complementary ways in a number of projects.

In "Catharsis," the small photographs, mostly taken by her father, are from her personal family album. They were made on the Catholic side of the West Belfast peace wall in her neighborhood of West Belfast. The street photographs were made on the Protestant side of the peace wall by Kelly, exploring many dualities: father/daughter, private/public, Catholic/Protestant, and Nationalist/Loyalist, as well as the underlying theme of previous trouble sites reinvented as tourist sites. This was her attempt to cross the divide, with GPS references both Belfast's military past and its present preoccupation with redefining itself as a tourist site.

Lament
Kelly's project "Lament" examines the almost invisible traces of the 1847 Great Irish Famine within the contemporary landscape of western Ireland. This work speaks not only to a specific history but invites the audience to pause and reflect on today’s troubling divisions in society in this era of mass immigration and dislocation, while offering a space to reflect on the promise of new beginnings.

Publications
"A History of Women Photographers" by Naomi Rosenblum (2010)

"Photography and the Artist's Book" (2012)

"The Photograph and the Album" (2013) published by Museums Etc.

"Catharsis: Images of Post-Conflict Belfast" in the Journal Photographies, Vol. 6, Issue 1 (Routledge, 2013)

Collections
The Art Institute of Chicago

The MacArthur Foundation

The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL

Illinois Photographers Project, Print Study Collection, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL

The Historical Society, Chicago, IL

Phinney Neighborhood Arts Association, Seattle, WA

The American Academy of Pediatrics, Illinois

Chicago Women in Philanthropy, Chicago, IL

The Rockford Art Museum, Rockford IL

Viewpoint Gallery, Salford Museum of Art, Salford, England

The Arts Council, London

Exhibitions and Presentations
Solo Exhibitions

All is Not What It Might Seem. Loomis Gallery, Mansfield, PA. October 5 2020.

Traces of Catharsis and Lament. Allcott Gallery and Museum, UNC, Chapel Hill. April 2019

Catharsis. Mason Scharfenstein Museum of Art, Demorest, GA. September 1 - October 31, 2014

pal.imp.sest - an installation of photographs and objects. The Original Gallery, Wallace Center RIT, Rochester, NY 2014.

Catharsis. 3rd Dali International Photography Exhibition, Dali Museum, Dali, China. 2011

Chrysalis Series. Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL.

Catharsis: Images of Post Conflict Belfast. Stone Canoe Art Exhibition. XL Projects Gallery, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Syracuse University. Syracuse, NY. 6 - 24 Jan. 2010.

Sundays At Sea. Harnett Gallery, University of Rochester. Rochester, NY. 1999

Domestic Discomfort. Valparaiso Art Museum. 1995

Chrysalis. Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL. 1990

Women’s Identity, Self Portraits Solo Exhibit, Gallery of Photography, St. Leonard-on-Sea, and England. 1987

Group Exhibitions
Keeper of the Hearth: Picturing Roland Barthes' Unseen Photograph. By Odette England. Houston Center of Photography, Houston TX. March 15, 2020.

Women Power Protest. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England. November 2018

Anti- Nostalgia. The Carrick Gallery and Museum, Durham, NC. October 2018.

A Few Conversations Between Women. 808 Gallery, Boston University, Art Galleries., Boston, MA. September 2018

A Green and Pleasant Land: British Landscape and the Imagination: 1970s to Now. 30 Sep. 2017. Towner Art Gallery, Museum Center, Eastbourne, England, UK

Colorful Colliding-International Visual Arts. Beijing HBJ flying art Co., Ltd, Beijing, China. September 2017

Images of the Silk Road: Tianshui Photography Biennale, Tianshui, China. June 2016.

Landscape Photo Show. ATP Gallery, New York, NY. January 2016.

Neo-Pre-Proto-Anti-Para-Ultra-Contra-Post Photography. Hanes Art Center, October 2015

Here and Elsewhere. Cazenovia Gallery, Cazenovia College, NY, 2012

Gallery r Invitational. Rochester, NY, 2012

Regarding Place: Photomedia Invitational. Tower Fine Arts, Brockport, NY

Jan Tichy, afterfront. Chicago Cultural Center, April 2014

Jan Tichy works with the MoCP Collection. The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, 2013

House and Home," The Building Museum, Washington DC, 2013

Spaces for the Self: The Symbolic Imagery of Place. The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago,1995

Likeness, Expression, and Character: Presence in Portraits. The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago,1990

Chrysalis, Changing Chicago. The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, 1989

Conference Presentations
Catharsis: Images of Post-Conflict Belfast. New York/New Belfast: Be the Bridge. Irish American Historical Society, 5th Ave, NYC. New York, NY. June 2019.

''Lament:Traces of the 19c. Famine in the Contemporary Irish Landscape. The 7th Annual Irish Studies Program Conference explores the Great Irish Famine through social and historical contexts.'' St. John Fisher College. Rochester, New York. 13 Apr. 2018.

Neither Here nor There. Proceedings of the Photography and Britishness. Ed. Martine Droth. New Haven, Ct.: Yale Center for British Art, 2016.

Translating Memory and Remembrance Across Disciplines. SUNY New Paltz, NY, October 2015

Lament. Ulster American Symposium, Quinnipiac University, June 2014

Lament. Image Makers Talk, National Society of Photographic Education, Chicago, March 2013

Lament. American Conference on Irish Studies, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, November 2013

Lament. 2nd Photomedia Biennale, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland, March 24-28, 2014

Lament. 20th Ulster-American Heritage Symposium: Irish Hunger, Poverty and Migration: A Transatlantic Perspective, June 18-21, 2014, Quinnipiac University, USA

After the Fact: Making a Photographic Record of the Past. 98th Annual Conference, College Art Association. 12 February 2010.

Essays and Chapters
"Catharsis: Images of Post Conflict Belfast, Chapter 3." 10 Must Reads Contemporary Photograph. Ed. Graeme Farnell. Edinburgh, UK: Museums ETC, 2016. 58-73. Print

"Book, Exhibition, Lecture, Website: Revisiting Catharsis: Images of Post-Conflict Belfast," in "Photography & the Artist's Book," edited by Theresa Wilkie, Jonathan Carson, and Rosie Miller. Published by MuseumsEtc.

"Catharsis: Images of Post-Conflict Belfast," Photographies Journal, Volume 6, Issue 1, Taylor and Francis, London, 2013

"Self-Image: The Personal is Political," published in "The Photography Reader" edited by Liz Wells (Routledge Press, Winter 2003)

Awards
In 2014, Angela Kelly was nominated by the Irish Voice in New York City as one of 100 US Irish educators. In 2017, she was nominated for the Prix Picket prize for her photography.