Oli Kellett: Cross Road Blues

Oli Kellett: Cross Road Blues by Aline SmithsonFebruary 25, 2024

©Oli Kellett, Cross Road Blues (Figueroa St, LA), 2016

©Oli Kellett, Cross Road Blues, published by Nazraeli press

“I’m looking for a moment where individuals are dwarfed by what surrounds them, appearing lost but searching for something. They then go on their way, whichever direction that may be.”

Oli Kellett‘s Cross Road Blues, has recently been published by Nazraeli press. Cross Road Blues coincides with a solo exhibition at HackelBury Fine Art, London. ‘Waiting for a Sign’ is Oli Kellett’s third solo show at HackelBury Fine Art, London and runs until 2^nd March 2024. Kellett’ images speak perfectly to this moment in time, where the world presents so many devastating issues – the isolation and the scale of the subjects are perfect metaphors for how we are feeling amidst all the chaos in the world.

Waiting for a Sign focuses on Kellett’s iconic Crossroad Blues series of large-scale portraits of people waiting at crossroads in urban cities across the globe from London to Mexico City and numerous across North America.

In these times of seismic geo-political shifts and significant global events, the series has now taken on a universal significance. It captures still moments of contemplation in which individuals question the direction they take and the life they make. Inspired by the title of Gauguin’s painting “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this series reflects our existential search for an answer.

The large-scale photographs in ‘Crossroad Blues’ series contrast the anonymity of urban space with the individuality of human experience. The scale of these photographs captures tangible human expression and allows the viewer to recognise a moment of conscious contemplation in their lives.

His monograph, Cross Road Blues is beautifully printed on a natural art paper and bound with a large tipped-in cover plate. The book presents a selection of 33 photographs from UK-based Oli Kellett’s iconic series of the same name. Kellett began the project in 2016 during a visit Los Angeles, during which time the United States was literally at a political crossroads. The series evolved naturally from there, eventually taking on a more universal meaning as Kellett continued his work in other countries including Spain, Japan, Brazil and Mexico.

The binding context in each of Kellett’s images is their setting at a crossroads – a familiar place and metaphor for the tension we encounter throughout life. “We live in an era of fake news, political polarization and algorithmic echo chambers,” Kellett explains. “Our experience of the world is fractured as we live out multiple identities on and offline. But crossroads are a democratic place; we all have to wait.”

©Oli Kellett, Cross Road Blues (1st St, Miami), 201

Oli Kellett is a British artist based in Hastings, UK. He began taking photographs in 2008. Since 2016 he has devoted himself to exploring the urban setting and our relationship with the crossroad and how people navigate their lives in his series ‘Crossroad Blues’.

After studying at Central Saint Martins, Kellett began his career as a creative in the advertising industry. Although Kellett had experimented with black and white photography since his teenage years, he moved onto colour photography and a large format camera when he left the advertising industry. While Kellett is strongly influenced by painting and the compositional techniques used, he loves the chance moment which one can capture with a photograph and is intrigued by moments of human contemplation. In 2018 Oli Kellett was awarded the Rose Award for Photography and the Royal Academy Arts Club Award, London. In 2021 he was shortlisted for the Photo London Emerging Photographer Award. He was awarded the Royal Photographic Society International Photography Exhibition 161 Bronze Prize. Works from Kellett’s ‘Soap Drawings’ series were included in the RA Summer Exhibition in 2022 and 2023.

Oli Kellett has works in private collections in the UK, Europe and the USA.

Prior to the ‘Crossroads’ series he worked on a series titled ‘Welcome to Paradise’ where he travelled around the UK over ten years photographing places with the word ‘paradise’ in the title; often revealing that these places were anything but paradise and far removed from any utopian vision.

Follow Oli on Instragram: @oli_kellett