2022 Catalogue Archive

The luxurious paintings of Kelli Vance begin as staged photographs. The artist constructs scenes of women in quiet moments of conflict, cropped in to focus on small details that act as clues to the person’s character and strength. Here, in Half Past Midnight, the protagonist wears a white lace bodice and holds a white lily that she has broken at the stem. The tension of the scene is underlined by the title’s suggestion of waiting late at night for something or someone, or staying up unable to let go of the events of the day. The subtle elements only reveal enough to create more mystery in the work. Vance graduated from University of Houston with her MFA and has shown across Texas as well as in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New Mexico.