Courtney Kessel

Courtney Kessel is a mother, artist, academic, and administrator living and working in Athens, Ohio. She serves as Director of Experiential Curriculum Integration where she collaborates with faculty and campus partners to expand experiential learning, support reflective teaching practices, and advance student success. She is currently the interim director of the Kennedy Museum of Art.

Kessel also teaches BFA Art + Design seniors and brings a practitioner’s perspective to her work in curriculum design and faculty development. Her scholarly and creative interests in experiential learning are deeply informed by her own interdisciplinary art practice, which centers reflection, process, collaboration, and applied learning.

Kessel is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited and presented nationally and internationally. Through sculpture, performance, photography, video, and sound, her practice makes visible the often-unseen labor of motherhood. Her long-running performance In Balance With (2010–present) explores collaboration with her daughter as a living, evolving relationship. She is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Arts and holds an MFA from Ohio University and a BFA from Tyler School of Art.

Selected Exhibitions

(*Solo Exhibition)

• 2025 Self-Adjacent, curated by Sarah Irvin and Tracy Stonestreet, Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio
• 2024 because you’re [mine.], (Two-person exhibition with storäe michele), Cultivate, Grand Rapids, Michigan
• Self-Adjacent, curated by Sarah Irvin and Tracy Stonestreet, Massey Klein Gallery, New York, New York
• 2023 Haimaz, Heimr, Hjem, Heem, Hām, Home, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Self-Adjacent, curated by Sarah Irvin and Tracy Stonestreet, Visual Arts Center, Richmond, Virginia
• CARE & COLLABORATION, Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts, Lubbock, Texas
• 2021 Betwixt Intermixed / Luminescent Effervescent Iridescent / Tandem and ‘tween: Courtney Kessel and Danielle
• Wyckoff, Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia
• Reflection Refraction Reaction, Courtney Kessel, Cayla Skillin-Brauchle, and Danielle Wyckoff,
• Morlan Gallery, Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky
• 2020 Sculpture Alumnae: 1986 – 2012, Ohio University Art Gallery, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio
• 2018 Bitch Mater-N-ial, curated by Britta Helbig and Saralisa Volm, Poison Gallery, Berlin, Germany
• Labors: An Exhibition Exploring the Complexities of Motherhood, Pearl Conard Art Gallery, Ohio State University, Mansfield, Ohio
• 2017 Capacity & Tension – 2017 Shanghai International Print Exhibition, curated by Lu Zhiping, November 2017 – April 2018, China Art Museum, Shanghai, China
• *A Blessing, A Wish, A Spell for the Next Generation (performance), Astrid Noacks Atelier, Copenhagen, Denmark
• A Prayer, A Wish, A Spell, (Two-person exhibition with Danielle Wyckoff) FOR HUB, Shanghai, China
• Home Bodies, October 2017 - January 2018, Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, Texas
• Cryin’ Out Loud, Muñoz Waxman Gallery, Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico
• 2016 Brood Film Fest, Exeter Phoenix, Bradninch Place, Exeter, United Kingdom
• New Maternalisms: Redux, curated by Natalie Loveless and the companion colloquium Mapping Maternal Ethics with keynote Griselda Pollock, FAB Gallery, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
• 2015 Project AfterBirth, White Moose Gallery, Barnstable, Devon, UK
• MOTHERNISTS, Upominki Gallery, Rotterdam, Netherlands
• *e.g. Courtney Kessel: You and Me, Brigham Young University Art Museum, Provo, Utah
• MOTHER, University of Southern Queensland Arts Gallery, Toowoomba, Australia
• 2014 New Maternalisms, Chile, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile
• *Mother Lode (Solo exhibition), Fairmont State University David Brooks Gallery, Fairmont, West Virginia
• FAMILY MATTERS: Living and Representing Today’s Family, Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy
• Complicated Labors: Feminism, Maternity, and Creative Practice, Curated by Irene Lusztig, Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery, UC Santa Cruz, California

Presentations and Awards

• Writing in White Ink: Autotheory, the Subjective Maternal, and the Refusal of Authorial Erasure, Museum of Motherhood and University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL, March 2026
• Cyborgs and Chimeras: 12 Artists on the Maternal Subjective, Museum of Motherhood, St. Petersburg, FL, March 2025
• bodyminds & thinkinghearts, a collaboration with Erin Pfahler, The National Women's Studies Association (NWSA), Puerto Rico, November 2025
• Chair, Practice Your Practice: Reflecting on Practice-Based Research in Higher Ed, SECAC, Atlanta, GA, October 2024
• Dear: Letter Writing as Cultural Production, NeMLA, (Keynote: Judith Butler) Baltimore, MD, March 2022
• Dear: Letter Writing as Cultural Production, SECAC, Baltimore, MD, September 2022
• The Mothernists II: Who Cares for the 21st Century?, Royal Danish Art Academy, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2017
• ARTspace at the College Art Association Conference, New York, NY, 2017
• New Materalisms: Redux and Mapping Maternal Ethics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, 2016
• Maternal Structures, School of Arts and Creative Industries, (Keynote speakers: Bracha L. Ettinger, Mary Kelly, and Faith Wilding) London South Bank University, London, England, 2015
• The Mothernists conference, LeesZall, Upominki, PrintRoom, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2015
• The RAW Symposium: Motherhood and Contemporary Art, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, 2014