Pictures for Charis offers a groundbreaking new work by artist Kelli Connell synthesizing text and image while raising vital questions about photography gender and portraiture in the twentyfirst century.amp160amp10Pictures for Charisamp160is a project driven by photographer Kelli Connells obsession with the writeramp160Charis Wilson Edward Westonamp8217s partner model and collaborator during one of the most productive segments of his historic career. Connell focuses on Wilson and Westonamp8217s shared legacy traveling with her own partner Betsy Odom to locales where the latter couple made photographs together more than eighty years ago. Wilson wrote extensively about her travels and about her and Westonamp8217s photographic concerns. In chasing Charis Wilsonamp8217s ghost Connell tells her own story one that finds a kinship with Wilson and to her surprise Weston too as she navigates her own life and struggles as an artist against a cultural landscape that has changed and yet remains mired in the many of the same thorny issues regarding the nature of desire and inspiration and the relationship of artist and landscape. This rich weave of narrative and images complicates and breathes new life into a wellknown set of photos while also presenting an entirely new and mesmerizing body of work by Connell her first work combining image and text as a mode of visual research and storytelling.amp160Copublished by Aperture and the Center for Creative Photography Tucsonamp10