Originally from Belfast, N. Ireland, Angela Kelly came to the US from the UK to serve as a full- time Visiting Artist at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago. Her art work is included in international collections worldwide, including: The Center for Creative Photography, Tucson; The Art Institute of Chicago; The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; The Historical Society, Chicago; The Arts Council of London, UK, as well as several private collections. She has received grants and fellowships from The Arts Council of Great Britain and N. Ireland, the Arts Mid-West National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, the Focus Infinity Fund, as well as faculty development, FEAD grants from RIT and a Chancellor’s artist in residence fellowship from the University of New Orleans. Her curatorial work debuted at Hayward Gallery, London. She continued curating while the vice-chair of exhibitions at Randolph St. Gallery, Chicago. She has lectured widely on her work in Europe, Asia and the US. Currently the Francis Endowed Professor at RIT Rochester, she has served on the executive committees of the National Board of Directors of the Society of Photographic Education, the International Fulbright Photography committee in NYC, as well photography panels at NYFA, NY and the Arts Council of Gt. Britain, Photography sub-committee.
In August 2011, while an artist in residence at the Burren College of Art,Ireland she developed research towards a body of work examining traces of the 19c. Irish famine in the contemporary Burren landscape. Eventually this research led to the work, Lament,’ a series of photographs which juxtaposes the archeological remains of a famine eviction village, and a workhouse with images of the tides and the sea. Working in and around the Irish coastal and interior areas, each image in the “Lament” series re-presents a connection to a melancholic beauty and historical tragedy. When fully realized, this ongoing work will be the subject of future exhibits in Asia, the US and Europe.
Following this residency, in September 2011, Angela Kelly exhibited a new solo exhibition of her work, Catharsis: Images of Post-Conflict Belfast, at the Dali Museum of Photography, Dali, Yunnan Province, China where her work was nominated among 200 for the best exhibit. In October 2011, she chaired a panel presentation for the symposia,Photography and the Artists book in Manchester England, contributing an essay, Book, Exhibition, Website: Revisiting Catharsis, in Photography and the Artist’s Book, published by Museum ETC,August 2012, and re-published in 2016.
In 2012, she presented at the Family Ties conference at the Birkbeck Research Institute, University of London, and at the first bi-annual, photography research symposium, Alto University, Helsinki, Finland. Her artwork is included in Naomi Rosenblum, A History of Women Photographers, 2010. Her feminist essay, Self -Image: The Personal is Political, is published in the photography theory text book, The Photography Reader, Liz Wells, Routledge Press, Winter 2003. Her essay, Catharsis: images of post conflict Belfast is included in the international journal Photographies, Vol. 6. Issue I, Taylor Francis, 2013.
Solo exhibitions include, All is not What it Might Seem at the Loomis Gallery, Mansfield University, Pa, 2020, Traces of Memory: Selections from Lament and Catharsis, 2019, Allcott Gallery, Hanes Art Center, UNC, Chapel Hill, N.C. US.
pal-imp-sest, The Sunken Gallery, 2013, Wallace Center, RIT, 2013, and Catharsis, the Mason Scharfenstein Museum of Art, Demorest, Ga. Group exhibitions, include, Keeper of the Hearth, Picturing Roland Barthes Unseen Photograph, Houston Center of Photography, 2020, JanTichy, afterfront,” at the Chicago Cultural Center, and Jan Tichy works with the MoCP Collection, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago,House and Home, The Building Museum, Washington DC and Here and Elsewhere, at Cazenovia College, NY in 2012 and Catharsis”- a Solo Exhibition, 3rd Dali International Photography Exhibition, 2011, Dali Museum, Dali, China, 2017- “COLORFUL COLLIDING” - INTERNATIONAL VISUAL ARTS, Beijing, China, 2017-“Every Women,’’ Women’s Art Collective, Benefit Exhibit Planned Parenthood, Industrial City, NYC.2016- Invitational “The Landscape Photography Show,” ATP Gallery, NYC. Her work from the Arts Council collection, was included in 2018-19- “Women Power Protest” Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, England and in the exhibitions, The State of Photography 2015, and The State of Photography, 2020, The Art Center, Nazareth College, Rochester.
In June 2019, she delivered an invitational talk on her work at the “New Belfast/ New York” Conference, American Irish Historical Society, NYC. In March 2013, she presented work and research from Lament at the National Society for Photographic Education (SPE) in Chicago. Further, she presented elements of her Lament project at the American Conference on Irish Studies, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY in November, 2013 and again at the Irish Studies conference there, in 2018. Her scholarly/poetic paper on the topic, Sites of Memory Landscapes, was given at the 2nd bi annual Photo media conference at Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland in March, 2014.
The first exhibit of Lament was created for the 1st Tianshui Biennale of Photography, Tianshui, China in 2016, and exhibited along with a new work, Mary Somerville, Lewis Hine and Me. In 2017, At the American Conference for Irish Studies. Ireland in Space, held in Georgetown University, 2017, she gave a paper on the topic of her Belfast work, Catharsis. In 2017, She was nominated for the Swiss Prix Picket International Prize in photography. Nominated by the Irish Voice as one of 100 US Irish educators, a selection of her work may be viewed at http://AngelaKellyPhoto.com.
http://cias.rit.edu/faculty-staff/44
http://AngelaKellyPhoto.com
http://www.reframingphotography.com/content/angela-kelly
http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/kelly_angela.php
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/artist/Kelly%2C+Angela
http://www.spenational.org/members/angela-kelly/
http://www.burrencollege.ie/people/angela-kelly
http://rit.academia.edu/AngelaKelly