Artist Reception + Booksigning, Friday, June 1st, 2012 4:30-6:30 PM. Exhibition continues through June.

photo-eye Gallery is located at 376 Garcia Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501

Kelli Connell's series, Double Life, appears to document the evolving relationship between two women. By combining multiple negatives of the same model, Connell uses digital imaging techniques to create constructed realities. The model acts out various fictional scenarios, with the characters' body language and clothing changing in each image. The work represents Connell’s investigation of identity, sexuality, and gender roles, as they shape and are expressed within intimate relationships. Through her photographs she addresses complex issues about visual rhetoric and the self.

As she states in an interview in her newly released monograph: “I’ve always seen identity as something that is very fluid and as such I usually shy away from labels altogether. Still, a larger part of this work explores the nature of identity formation. In my own personal history, the process of questioning my sexuality was confounding, because the conventional categories, and even the need to categorize in the first place felt like… something being pushed on me. Meanwhile the internal experience of my sexual and gender identity was quite natural and yet not a static thing at all. Perhaps this work is trying to figure out why we rely on categories and labels the way we do."

For print information, contact Anne Kelly, Associate Director.

The gallery is open 10am-5pm Tuesday-Saturday or by appointment.