100 Lafayette Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70801, www.lsumoa.org
T 225-T389-7200 F 225-389-7219
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Jeff English jeff@creativeenglish.biz
225-931-6964
ACCALIA AND THE SWAMP MONSTER: WORKS BY KELLI SCOTT KELLEY
August 22, 2014 – February 15, 2015
Baton Rouge, LA – From August 22, 2014 to February 15, 2015, the LSU Museum of Art
presents Accalia and the Swamp Monster: Works by Kelli Scott Kelley. Kelley’s exhibition takes
museum visitors on a surreal journey through a haunted southern landscape, one populated by
swamp monsters and shadowed by our deepest thoughts and darkest nightmares. Inspired by
Kelley’s recently published book of the same name, Accalia and the Swamp Monster is both an
entrancing display of Kelley’s art and an affirmation of the transformative power of fairy tales—
a story of despair, atonement and transformation told in the whisper of a remembered bedtime
story.
Accalia and the Swamp Monster features fifty of Kelley’s intricate mixed media works, painted
and drawn on repurposed antique linens. These fifty works together form a loosely
autobiographical fairy tale inspired by Kelley’s research into the lore of Louisiana swamplands
and meditations on her own past. Harkening to the traditions of women’s handicrafts as well as
Louisiana folklore, Kelley’s exhibition examines the ways that historical perceptions of gender,
family and place have impacted her personal experiences as well as her practice of art-making.
“The fairy-tale-like story of Accalia and the Swamp Monster,” Kelley says, “is based on my own
autobiography and dreams. The images in my artwork have often referenced fairy tales and
fables, and so I became curious about writing a mythological narrative as a starting point for a
series of artworks. After travelling to Northern Italy to study Renaissance image cycles, I wrote
Accalia and the Swamp Monster, and made the intimate, personal works on display in this
exhibition.”
Kelley, an Associate Professor at the LSU School of Art, drew upon Roman mythology, Jungian
analysis and the psychology of fairy tales to create Accalia and the Swamp Monster, a deeply
personal exhibition that speaks to the role of folklore and fairy tales in contemporary American
life. “Kelley’s work,” writes Dr. Katie Pfohl, curator of the exhibition, “uniquely adapts the
traditions of Louisiana folklore to craft a thoroughly modern fable yet still haunted by
Louisiana’s history and Kelley’s own past.”
Accalia and the Swamp Monster: Works by Kelli Scott Kelley is organized by the LSU Museum
of Art and curated by Dr. Katie Pfohl, curator at the LSU Museum of Art.
LSU Museum of Art is located in Downtown Baton Rouge at 100 Lafayette Street on the fifth
floor of the Shaw Center for the Arts. General admission is $5 each for adults and children age
13 and over. Admission is free to university faculty, staff, and students with ID, children age 12
and under, and museum members. Hours of operation are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and
Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5
p.m. For more information, visit www.lsumoa.org or call 225-389-7200.
Programs:
For more information or to schedule a tour, please contact Lucy Perera, LSU Museum of Art
coordinator of school and community programs, at lperera@lsu.edu or call 225-389-7207.
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