oli-kellett

Oli Kellett is a photographic artist based in Hastings, interested in the moments when the everyday briefly becomes something else. A person waiting at a crossroads, a gust of wind catching a veil of water: small, familiar events that, with the right combination of timing, light and patience, can take on an almost mysterious significance. For this Sussex Spotlight exhibition, Kellett brings together prints from two distinct bodies of work, made almost a decade apart. Cross Road Blues is a series of photographs taken at crossroads, where people are momentarily caught in contemplation. For this, he set up his camera and waited – sometimes for hours. The resulting photographs are beautifully still, capturing people in those brief intervals when they seem to have wandered somewhere else in their minds. Upstairs are two prints from his later Fountains series. Kellett became fascinated by the thin veil of water droplets suspended in the air after falling from the fountains at Trafalgar Square, and began photographing them with a telephoto lens as they were carried on the breeze before finally dispersing. This balance between order and accident runs through Kellett’s work. His photographs are rooted in a long fascination with art history, particularly its lessons in composition, light and colour, but also in the larger questions posed by existential and Eastern philosophy. At the heart of his practice is a search for the universal within the everyday. This event is part of Art History Festival 2026 organised by the Association for Art History. Supported by David and Sarah Kowitz and HackelBury Fine Art