Kevin Van Aelst is an artist based in New Haven, CT. Born in Elmira, NY and raised in central Pennsylvania, he received a B.A. in psychology from Cornell University in 2002 and an M.F.A. in photography from the Hartford Art School in 2005. He has taught photography courses at the Hartford Art School, Middlesex Community College, Quinnipiac University, and currently at Southern Connecticut State University and at the ACES Educational Center for the Arts. His artwork has been exhibited internationally, including one-person shows at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Panopticon Gallery, and many others. His photo-illustrations can be seen in such publications as Time, Wired, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Scientific American, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and on book covers such as Rachel Maddow’s Drift.
Impossible Shapes
My artwork is an attempt to juxtapose my physical surroundings with the fears, fascinations, and daydreams occupying my mind. The photographs and constructions consist of common artifacts, materials, and scenes from everyday life, which have been rearranged and reassembled into various forms, patterns, and illustrations. The images aim to examine the distance between where my mind wanders to and the material objects that inspire those fixations. Equally important to this work are the ‘big picture’ and the ‘little things’—the mundane and relatable artifacts of our daily lives, and more mysterious notions of life and existence.
This body of work consists of still life photographs that deal with memory. Photography, itself, strives to serve as a mechanical means of capturing how we experience moments, but can never replicate actually living them. My images each contain printed photographs as integral parts of their compositions. These photographic objects represent memories and how they become organized, filed away, altered, or damaged within our consciousness. My work aims to examine the relationship between photography and memory, and is also a contemplation of memory itself.
To view more of Kevin Van Aelst’s work please visit his website.