Michal Chelbin: See Me
Michal Chelbin's exhibition, "SEE ME," explores the artist's play on one's identity. Chelbin's photography attempts to capture human stories in everyday life; the identities of people not in the mainstream, many of them belonging to the edge of society and existing in the space between the odd and the ordinary. Her main themes are not social or topical, but collective and mythi- cal; she searches for people who have a legendary quality in them.
Chelbin's subjects are fragile androgynous bodies, the antithesis of the common fashion model, who carry the burden of youthful beauty on their narrow shoulders - sometimes light and delicate as a feather, often dark and viscous as tar.
The armor of high fashion, the symbol of the pinnacle of economic success, turns upon their bodies from a creation of splendor to a veil of discomfort. Chelbin's images are vehicles to ad- dress universal themes of family, ideas of normality, puberty, and the desire for fame.
She creates an informal scene in which her subjects directly confront the viewers, urging them to "See Me!" Her aim is to record a scene where there is a mixture of direct information and enigma, in which there are visual contrasts between young and old, large and small, regular and unique.
For Chelbin, the image is just the beginning; it's the gateway to a story waiting to be told, about a life full of contradictions on the battleground between fantasy and reality.
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Michal Chelbin's exhibition, "SEE ME," explores the artist's play on one's identity. Chelbin's photography attempts to capture human stories in everyday life; the identities of people not in the mainstream, many of them belonging to the edge of society and existing in the space between the odd and the ordinary. Her main themes are not social or topical, but collective and mythi- cal; she searches for people who have a legendary quality in them.
Chelbin's subjects are fragile androgynous bodies, the antithesis of the common fashion model, who carry the burden of youthful beauty on their narrow shoulders - sometimes light and delicate as a feather, often dark and viscous as tar.
The armor of high fashion, the symbol of the pinnacle of economic success, turns upon their bodies from a creation of splendor to a veil of discomfort. Chelbin's images are vehicles to ad- dress universal themes of family, ideas of normality, puberty, and the desire for fame.
She creates an informal scene in which her subjects directly confront the viewers, urging them to "See Me!" Her aim is to record a scene where there is a mixture of direct information and enigma, in which there are visual contrasts between young and old, large and small, regular and unique.
For Chelbin, the image is just the beginning; it's the gateway to a story waiting to be told, about a life full of contradictions on the battleground between fantasy and reality.
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