Cris Worley Fine Arts is pleased to present With my eyes closed, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Kelli Vance that reconsiders the femme fatale through questions of female agency, vulnerability, and power. The exhibition will open with an artist’s reception Saturday, November 7th from 5 to 7 pm and will run through December 19th.

Drawing on the imagery of Renaissance painting and the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Vance revisits an archetype historically shaped by anxieties surrounding women’s sexuality and independence. Her subjects inhabit moments of uncertainty and anticipation, their intentions unresolved and their actions suspended at the threshold of consequence.

Working from staged photographs in which she serves as her own model, Vance inhabits roles that complicate the relationship between artist, subject, and performance. She is drawn to the instant before an event unfolds, when possibility remains open and a woman has yet to be defined by what others fear she might do. In revisiting historical figures such as Judith, poised to behead Holofernes, and Timoclea, who kills her rapist, Vance explores the tension between vulnerability and agency, reclaiming a visual tradition long shaped by male perceptions of female power.

Vance’s paintings combine meticulous realism with cinematic cropping and deliberately incomplete narratives. Antique garments, found objects, and carefully selected props function as clues to stories that extend beyond the picture plane. A twisting hand, the tension of fabric, or a partially obscured figure can carry the psychological weight of an entire scene. By withholding information, Vance leaves viewers to navigate the space between what is visible and what remains imagined.

The title, With my eyes closed, holds fantasy, anxiety, vulnerability, and expertise in tension. It suggests encounters with risk and intimacy that may involve not simply surrender, but calculation, desire, and control. Rather than resolve these ambiguities, Vance allows her subjects to remain elusive, inviting multiple readings of the moments she so precisely constructs.