Reid Kelley is known for her short films, but often integrates her background of painting and drawing into her multimedia works. For example, in her 2015 short film,
The Thong of Dionysus, she integrates her drawing and painting skills in the set's background as seen by the harshly drawn and sharply outlined portraits behind the minotaur. Her use of contrasting black and white further adds a cartoonish quality to her works, perpetuating the line between comedy and serious subject matter that Reid Kelley's works tend to play with. While studying at
Yale, Reid Kelley benefited greatly from the archives of students who had left for World War One, realizing the importance of poetry for understanding both artistic and popular culture of the time. (2008), the ''Queen's English
(2008), Sadie the Saddest Sadist
(2009), and You Make Me Iliad'' (2010). Interweaving historical and literary references, euphemisms, and clever puns within the parameters of rhyming verse, her scripts are both humorous and complex. Her humorous lines are delivered with a deadpan quality, emphasizing the effectiveness of both her acting and writing styles.
You Make Me Iliad (2010) You Make Me Iliad is a work created by Reid Kelley in 2010. The work is 14 minutes long and 49 seconds, and it is shot completely in black and white. Reid Kelley was inspired to tell the story of her World War One heroine after discovering that most literature of the World War One era was written by men, leading to her heroine's story largely being narrated by the men in her life. This choice both reflects the problems of archival records that have largely been shaped by male voices and the irony of a woman's story being told by men who are largely ignorant to such experiences. was created by Reid Kelley in 2011. The work is 11 minutes long and two seconds, and it is shot completely in black and white. As in her other works, Reid Kelley intertwines her poetic storytelling with humorous additions to bring light to the story of a forgotten and doomed woman in a highly romanticized time period: the French
La Belle Époque. We Are Ghosts (2017) We Are Ghosts is a more recent project. It was featured at the Tate Liverpool and the Baltimore Museum of Art, and was Reid Kelley's first museum solo project to be displayed in the UK. The work reimagines life on a U.S.
submarine, taking place at the end of
World War Two. The exhibition featured two of her classically black and white stylized short films:
In the Body of the Sturgeon and
This is Offal. The exhibition also displayed Reid Kelley's artistic strengths outside of film, showcasing her life-size light-box portraits of the characters shown in her films. The work also follows the typical narration style used by Reid Kelley, blending poetry from historical sources to retell less glamorous and more realistic stories. Such accounts do not hedge around the misery and challenges faced by the characters, but they still maintain humorous and satirical themes. == Solo exhibitions ==