Clay Mills is a filmmaker, photographer and writer

Clay Mills is a filmmaker, photographer and writer originally from Texas, now based in Chicago.

To Clay, film lends itself to move like dreams and memory impressions without the need to resort to the cheap tricks of the dream-like, dream and flashback sequences, and the trippy. He believes film is a form that can intuitively make sense while watching it, while — like a dream — loses its sensibility in the act of explanation. This is where “movie magic” lives.

Clay's photography attempts to capture what has become tabooed. He photographs friends as if they were strangers, and the "ugly" with uncomfortable covetousness. His photos have been described by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art's Curator of Photography as "like Cartier-Bresson taking the decisive moment, but [instead] taking the indecisive moment."

📷 MY PHOTOS 📷

Clay also works professionally as a cinematographer, editor, gaffer, photographer, and educator in filmmaking.

Clay's hope is that his work is adequate to what Baudelaire tasked us with: to capture, “the fugitive, fleeting beauty of present-day life… often weird, violent, and excessive.”

cpmills94 [at] gmail.com

Instagram

Vimeo

Education

2021-2024 — School of the Art Institute of Chicago, MFA in Film/Video/New Media/Animation
2016-2020 — Northwestern University, BFA in Radio, Television, Film, Minor in Slavic Studies

Projects

2024 [forthcoming] — Our Friend Just Died 🎥
2024 [forthcoming] — Heaven’s Like a Frat Party, You Just Gotta Know Someone 📷📖
2024 — Destroy the Ring! 📷📖 [booklet]
2024 — My Soul is a Cage on the Outside of My Body — 25:21 🎥
2023 — “day drinking again” by MOTOBOY music video — 1:06 📹
2023 — A Tale of Two Jesses 📷📖 [booklet]
2021 — “富む” by Tomu music video — 5:48 📹
2021 — FILA Girl — 8:24 🎥
2019 — Hotline Misery — 9:40 🎥
2019 — Kissing Show — 3:51, 4:34, 5:14 📹
2018 — The Orifice: He Realized What He Perceived as Choice was Actually Inevitability — 3:09 🎥

Screenings, Exhibitions and Awards

2024 — Photo exhibited at Arts + Literature Laboratory — Madison, WI
2024 — Photo exhibited at the Museum of the Big Bend — Alpine, TX
2024 — Photos exhibited in Zone Mag’s FETISH Group Show — Vercelli, Italy
2024 — Photo exhibited in Latitude’s Connectivity Group Show — Chicago, IL
2023 — Screening of FILA Girl at Sweet Void Cinema Shorts Festival — Chicago, IL
2023 — Photo published in 2023 SAIC Photo Catalog
2023 — Screening of FILA Girl at NPCC Anti-Clout Film Festival — New York City, NY
2022 — SAIC Dean's Grant
2021 — Screening of Hotline Misery and FILA Girl at Clap City Cinema’s DIAL HOME screening event — Chicago, IL
2020 — Photos published on Nearness Project
2020 — Irwin Weil Award
2020 — Exhibition of photos in BINGE Group Show — Chicago, IL
2019 — Joann Torretta Award
2019 — Screening of Hotline Misery at Asbury House — Evanston, IL
2018 — RTVF Media Arts Grant

Cinematography

2024 — Untitled Sublation Media documentary feature
2024 — Untitled Asher Bentley short
2024 — Our Friend Just Died — film
2023 — I Can No Longer Find What Never Existed — film
2023 — “Whirlpools” by Bria — music video
2021 — One Day Only! — webseries
2021 — Rad Lads Burgers and Fries — film
2021 — FILA Girl — film
2020 — Curse — film
2019 — Bravas — film
2019 — Snake — film
2019 — Kissing Show — webseries
2018 — Crushing It — webseries
2018 — Blunderbuss — film

Published Writing, Lectures and Appearances

2024 — “Griftworld” — Essay
2024 — “A Response to Adam Lehrer’s “The Limits of MAGA Art” — Essay in Caesura Magazine
2024 — Text for Real World art exhibition — Seoul, KR
2024 — Retrospective on “The -Cores Doc” — Appearance on Montez Press Radio, New York City
2023 — “Talk on Artist Talks” — Lecture presented at SAIC — Chicago, IL
2023 — “You don’t need a revolution for that: An interview with Louis Menand” — Interview in the Platypus Review
2023 — “Review of Skinamarink” — Essay in Caesura Magazine
2022 — “A Brief Cutaway From Progress” — Transcript of lecture
2022 — “Media and Millennial Runoff” — Essay in Sublation Magazine
2022 — “What is Content?, or are you content with being Content” — Teach-in presented at SAIC
2021 — “Drilling to the -Core of How Trends Live, Die, and Eat Themselves” — Essay in Highsnobiety
2021 — “Digital Filmmaking: Aesthetic Crisis” — Lecture presented at Northwestern University
2020 — “Nightcore and Unkept Promises” — Essay in Chicago Underground Film Fest Website
2020 — “-Cores Doc” — Essay

wanna work with me? email cpmills94 [at] gmail.com

The Orifice: He Realized What He Perceived as Choice Was Actually Inevitability