John Kelly

With his body painted and his arms contorted in front of him, performer and performance artist John Kelly here strives to inhabit the Viennese artist Egon Schiele. On stage and in photographs, Kelly uses characters as tool for self-exploration. He describes his work as autobiographical or semiautobiographical or metaphorical, and then 50% focusing on actual characters from history, whether it was a real person or a mythological character like Orpheus. And I guess the reason with that is . . . there’s an urgency in me that is wanting to get out. And then when I focus on an existing character, there’s something in their life story and work that speaks to me, and I’m able to embody them to some degree and also satisfy my need to express certain parts of myself and what I’m going through at any given moment.

–Conor Moynihan, assistant curator of prints, drawings, and photographs