Sue Kyllonen

I am a graduate of the University of Minnesota and a local film school, Film in the Cities.  My degree is in photography and filmmaking.

My work has been exhibited and collected throughout the Midwest and in Europe. Subject material includes the Elderly, Horses, Minnesota Farm Families, and People living with Aids. 

I have received grants and awards from the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota Historical Association, and the St.Paul Companies.

I am a retired professional horse trainer and photographer now living in Ocala.  I consider myself a black and white photographer who misses the darkroom but enjoys the immediacy of digital images. The two pieces submitted here are from an extensive "living with AIDS" project that I shot during the first half of the 1990's and are silver gelatin prints.  I pursued this because I felt under educated about AIDS.  By the 1990's people were living with the virus and continuing to live, love and raise families. Eric and I met while he lived in a Franciscan Brothers hospice and began a three year odyssey that ended when he passed away.  We did many things together and I documented all of it.  Portraits are my strong point so we made a series of images that revealed how his body changed during our time together.  I received grant support from the Jerome Foundation and the St Paul Companies to help me complete this work.  The entire project plus and audio aspect resides in the St Paul archives, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the Minnesota AIDS Project.  

Florida