KELLY CONNOLE earned her MFA from San Francisco State University in 1996, and her BFA in 1991 from the University of Montana in Missoula. She currently is Assistant Professor at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She has been the recipient of many Fellowships and Grants, including the Minnesota State Arts Board, Jerome and McKnight Residency Fellowship. CONNOLE'S first show at Circa was also reviewed in Art in America, published in the winter of 2009.
KELLY CONNOLE combines the tactile nature of clay with abstract images of memories and emotions. Though her interests in clay are varied, she is continually drawn to work that addresses relationships within environments: natural and constructed, human and animal. And the undeniable mastery of material and intensity of workmanship that CONNOLE displays reinforces an idea of heightened importance.
When CONNOLE was a little girl living in rural Montana animals were her constant companions. Several of her pet rabbits broke free of their cages and multiplied. One night, on a full moon, she looked out of her bedroom window to see a whole herd of rabbits in the space between the house and the barn. The moonlight glistened on their backs, illuminating their voluptuous forms and curious ears. When a flock of birds flew over the rabbits, casting fleeting shadows on their backs, it took her breath away.
This experience remains one of the most beautiful sights she has ever seen. At that moment she saw the place where the sky and the earth meet and felt a part of a world much larger than she could then, or now, describe with words.
Through her series of hybrid creatures she hopes to capture just a bit of the magic she experienced that night. The detailed carving of each creature, the deliberation and thought behind every mark, leaves a kind of narrative within each component of the installation. We can literally see and identify with CONNOLE’S body as she works the material, holds each mass of semi-hardened clay, etches into it, and breathes life into yet another hybrid creature. As a sculptor, CONNOLE is concerned with the visceral experience a viewer has with her work. CONNOLE has made the choice to create work which maintains integrity with regard to craft, and which actively seduces through its tactility and beauty.
