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Keliy Anderson-Staley

BIO

Keliy Anderson-Staley works with nineteenth-century tintype* photographic processes in her exploration of universal themes. Faithfully dedicated to the process, Anderson-Staley remains true to the centuries-old method in her material, using a wet plate collodion technique.* Through her method and composition, Keliy’s portraits are timeless as they investigate issues of identity, heritage, and beauty. Her series [hyphen] Americans explores the hyphenated character of American individuals (ie. African-American), while emphasizing the shared American identity. When encountering these soulfully beautiful images, Keliey hopes “the viewer is encouraged to suspend the kind of thinking that would traditionally assist in decoding these images.” Contemporary art professor and photography specialist Geoffrey Batchen comments on what he believes to be most striking about the series: “The people portrayed still appear to be growing into them, still seem in the process of becoming themselves. In this way, Anderson-Staley’s work transcends the undoubted curiosity value of her chosen medium. Before they are tintypes, these pictures are portraits, portraits of contemporary Americans.”

Keliy earned her BA from Hampshire College in Massachusetts and her MFA from Hunter College in New York City. The artist currently splits time between Arkansas, Maine, and New York.

*tintype: a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a sheet of iron metal that is blackened by painting, lacquering or enamelling.

*collodian process: The wet plate collodion process was the leading mode of photography in the 1850′s and 1860′s. Ambrotypes are positive images exposed onto blackened glass; tintypes are made the same way but onto blackened metal. The finished plates are one-of-kind three-dimensional objects. 

The wet plate process requires precisely mixed homemade chemistry: collodion, silver bath, fixer, and varnish. The chemistry that is poured onto each glass or metal plate is less sensitive to light than film, forcing exposures to be longer than one can hold an unwavering smile, hence the serious expressions. Often a head brace is necessary to hold a pose. The sitter must focus intently on the camera while the photographer sensitizes, expose and develops the image before the plate dries. The chemical properties of the process allow each image to be seen minutes after the exposure is made.” 

- Keliy Anderson-Staley 

IMAGE GALLERY