Forest Kelley

In this untitled work, photographer Forest Kelley stands in front of what appears to be a lush landscape. A wooden door at the left of the image, however, reveals the scene’s artifice as a type of wallpaper. This trick of the eye becomes a rumination on loss: Kelley’s uncle died, presumably by suicide, shortly after HIV antibody testing became available in 1985.

This work points how the experience of illness reverberates and echoes long into the future. “My life would have been different had Michael lived; his very absence has been formative. My work connects me to a past that was and a present that could have been.”