John Kelly’s performance work evolved from a background in dance and visual art, and a resulting relationship to the mirror—in the dance and rehearsal studios through the process of self-realization, and in an ongoing practice of self-portraiture. Coincident impulses of introspection and presentation have led him to create over 40 character-driven performance works. Varying degrees of autobiography have also permeated these works; performance as self-portrait.
A relatively unknown part of Kelly’s practice is his work as a visual artist. Since the 1970s, he has consistently created self-portraits, in the form of drawings, paintings, photographs, and video. The studio time devoted to making these artworks is often a core part of the development of subsequent performance works. Kelly has also devised ways of incorporating the process of drawing and painting in live performance—chalk lines drawn on the stage floor, a film of painting on glass projected on the back wall, a painted panel revealed through a temporary and subsequently removed layer of white.
Two of his films in collaboration with filmmaker Anthony Chase, THE DAGMAR ONASSIS STORY and THE MONA LISA, are in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art.
