Michal Chelbin, Israel (Lives and works in NY)

In her images Ms. Chelbin captures human stories in everyday life. She enters the private lives of performers - resulting in a hybrid world of fantasy and reality, glamour and the ordinary. The artist is fascinated with the contrasts between the performers’ public lives and their private identity. Her characters are always interesting, not mainstream, and her images transport viewers to a mysterious, odd place which is somewhere between fiction and documentary. Ms. Chelbin considers her photographs as a collaboration between her subjects and herself and manages to capture a glimpse of their personal environment, creating a unique degree of intimacy.

The two photographs presented here are part of the artist’s most recent series “Strangely Familiar”. In “Lena With Her Poodles” Ms. Chelbin presents a glamorous performer who is being contrasted with the domesticity of a housewife.  “Janna and Alona” presents adolescent girls suggesting sexual awakening. Their slim boyish bodies tell one story while their glitzy ultra-feminine costumes another. The artist states: ”I am very interested in boys and girls on the verge of adolescence. I think they are in this difficult age between innocence and experience. They might be physically immature, but their gaze might tell you a different story. There is something so familiar about them, yet so elusive. I feel they represent with the most clarity the theme that interests me the most: the twilight zone I see in the world between reality and fantasy.”