Kelli Vance

Cris Worley Fine Arts is proud to announce our upcoming exhibition, Kelli Vance: Don’t Abandon Me, which opens May 11th and runs through June 15th with an artist’s reception on Saturday, May 11th from 4-7pm. This is Vance’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery.

Vance’s luxurious and masterly paintings have often presented women in states of anomie or conflict—personal, social, physical. This is the feminine in a quietly hostile environment of her own making, or trapped in a set of expectations that she either works with, to maintain equilibrium, or against, with mixed results—sometimes defeated, sometimes defiant. Vance’s women are in a kind of unseen, unstoppable trouble, or they are recalling it, or are bracing for it. They are often in their final minutes of innocence before the sinister shadow overtakes the narrative.

In the latest works Vance returns to the use of a second figure, a trope she employed in the beginning of her career. The addition of another character sets up a new dynamic in the work, as one figure is often seen in conflict with the “other.” It is important to consider, however, that when setting up compositions (Vance photographs them first before painting) she plays the role of both characters, acting as both protagonist and antagonist. The title of the exhibition, Don’t Abandon Me then takes on a new meaning, a mantra of sorts, reminding one to always strive for authenticity and self-possession.

Kelli Vance was born in Garland, Texas receiving her BFA from the University of North Texas in 2005 and her MFA from the University of Houston in 2008. Recent solo exhibitions include: NADA Miami (upcoming 2024); Long Story Short Gallery (NYC-2023, Paris-2023, LA-2022); Cris Worley Fine Arts Dallas (2022) She was a Roswell, Artist-in-Residency in Roswell, New Mexico in 2009, and was also included in the 2009 Texas Biennale. In 2014, she was a finalist for the Hunting Art Prize, and in 2017 she received a Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Grant. Vance’s work is in the permeant collection of Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art in Roswell, New Mexico. She has taught at the Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, in Houston Texas since 2019.

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Don't Abandon Me

May 11 – June 15, 2024

Featured Works

Press Release