“Pictures for Charis” by Kelli Connell

The book by Kelli Connell is a love letter to Charis Wilson, the author and wife of Edward Weston, an early adopter of modern photography, whose photographs and nudity she starred in from 1934 to 1945. It tells the story of Connell’s pilgrimage to the places both of them travelled to while travelling across the country, bringing Betsy, her then-partner, into the scenes. Along with historical pictures and Charis’s story, Connell’s half-ghosted photographs are filled with visual divisions and rhymes which mix fantasy and reality, respect and humility.

Kelli Connell’s “In Pictures for Charis” is a photobook that mixes personal narrative, art, and looking at confusing relationships, with a focus on affection, identity, and self-representation. Connell uses self-portraiture in this piece to show an invented connection with Charis. A number of photographs in the book seem to capture relations between Connell and Charis, but they are actually Connell’s own portrayals of both characters. Topics of self-perception and the complicated nature of identity are shown in a multi-layered story where the lines between the artist and her subject are blurred. The images staged shows the exciting nature of relationships and encourages viewers to consider how personal connections are created. The book’s themes of desire and the problem of emotional connections are made clear by its elegant arrangement and thorough analysis of private moments. Connell explores how relationships are shown and understood by using both real and the imagined, reflecting human connections. The visual story in “In Pictures for Charis” encourages the audience to think about the observer’s act and how we create identity in our relationships with others and with ourselves.