Artist talk: Unravel the storied, fantastical tales in 'Myths and Legends'

Join SCAD Museum of Art assistant curator Haley Clouser in conversation with artists Chloe West, Mary Reid Kelley, and Patrick Kelley as they discuss their works featured in the group exhibition Myths and Legends. Approaching various interpretations of “myth,” from fantastical tales like the Greek Minotaur to widely held fallacies on gender and spirituality, the exhibiting artists illustrate the ways mythologies reflect a given period’s treasured societal values and attempt to explain the human experience. A Q&A follows the discussion.

This event is free and open to the public.

About the artists
Chloe West (b. 1993, Cheyenne, Wy.; lives and works in St. Louis, Mo.) earned a B.F.A. from the University of Wyoming in 2015 and an M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2017. West draws on traditions of oil painting from Medieval and Renaissance-era Europe, often referencing Flemish and Dutch iconographies of memento mori and vanitas paintings. She merges these histories with that of the American West, creating figurative and still life paintings that mine both her personal experiences and the collective mythic vision of the frontier. Most recently, West’s work has been exhibited at Harper’s, New York, East Hampton, and Los Angeles; The Armory Show, New York; NADA New York and Miami; Art Brussels; Galerie Mighela Shama, Geneva; Micki Meng/Parker Gallery, New York; and Morgan Presents, New York. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Colossal, and ArtMaze Magazine.

Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley combine painting, performance, and poetry in distinctive black-and-white videos about history and mythology. Combining Mary’s wordplay-rich verse with Patrick’s collage and animation-based filmmaking, the pair’s videos have been shown in solo exhibitions at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; Tate Liverpool; the Baltimore Museum of Art; The High Line, New York; Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston; and Studio Voltaire, London. Group shows include SITE Santa Fe; the Front Triennial; Haus Der Kunst, Munich; Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw; Fondazione Prada, Milan; and MACBA Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona. Their work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, W Magazine, La Repubblica, Vogue, The New Yorker, Artforum, Mousse Magazine, Flash Art, Frieze, ARTnews, and Art in America. Mary and Patrick live and work in upstate New York. Their 2016 film, This Is Offal, won the Baloise Prize at Art Basel. Mary is a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. Their most recent commission is for the National Portrait Gallery in London and is on view until September 2026.

Image credit: Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, "Swinburne's Pasiphae," 2014, film still. Courtesy of the artists, Fredericks & Freiser, and Pilar Corrias.