Kelli Connell is a contemporary American photographer. Connell is known for creating portraits, which may appear as self-portraits, similar to the portrait work by Cindy Sherman. She was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1974. She received a BFA in photography from University of North Texas (1997) and an MFA in photography from Texas Woman’s University (2003), both in Denton, Texas. Since 2003 solo exhibitions of her work have been held at various exhibits across the country. Kelli Connell became a photographer to explore how photography can raise questions. In her series Double Life, she seeks to question ideas of identity, gender roles, and expectations made by society on the individual. The series, which depicts a woman in a romantic relationship with herself, shows the “couple” having intimate and private moments in their lives. Connell worked with the same model over a series of years to produce the work.
These are some photos from her series Double Life. She uses elements of private relationships she has experienced herself or witnessed in others to inspire these two-person scenes. She then uses Photoshop to stitch multiple medium-format negatives together to create the juxtapositions in the final photographs.
I use photography not as a means to show a truth but as a tool to question our thoughts about ourselves and our relationships with other people.
—Kelli Connell, 2012
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