Art Faculty - Clay Mills

Clay Mills is a filmmaker, photographer, and writer originally from Texas, now based in Chicago. He received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2024 and a BFA from Northwestern University in 2020.

His work has been shown at Filter Photo, the Roxy Theater in New York, the Lumiere Theater in Los Angeles, the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Flat Earth Film Festival, the New People’s Cinema Club, the Experimental Sound Studio, the Art + Literature Laboratory, and the Museum of the Big Bend. He was a resident at the Kimball Arts Center during its 2025-2026 Fall/Winter Cycle.

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.”

See more of his work on Clay’s website and Instagram.

Clay Mills' Work

Clay Mills is a filmmaker, photographer, and writer who teaches audio-video production at MCC.

A man in dark clothing is standing in a sparsely furnished bedroom, looking out a window at a gas station sign. A person sitting barefoot in a gaming chair at a desk with soda cans, playing on a computer with a large wall-mounted screen. Busy urban intersection with cars waiting near a Shell gas station and McDonald's signs under a partly cloudy sky. Light-colored curtains with a subtle leaf pattern are partially drawn beside a glass door leading to an outdoor balcony. Four mannequins in matching red-and-black plaid pajamas displayed on a white platform in a brightly lit store. Person posing behind a McDonald's land-themed cutout with Grimace, and a colorful character. An elderly woman in a green jacket pushes a shopping cart in a nearly empty supermarket aisle with mostly bare shelves. Love's gas station sign, showing diesel at $3.83 and unleaded at $3.29, under a partly cloudy sky. Damaged portable toilet with melted plastic and debris on a city sidewalk.