Michal Chelbin: The Black Eye

The Black Eye continues Michal Chelbin’s exploration of the world of athletes and performers. The wrestlers in this series are studies in contrasts: youth and manhood, strength and weakness, splendor and roughness. Also apparent is a contrast in the pairing of luscious, virbrant, colored backgrounds and the raw, sometimes bruised surfaces of the subjects’ skin. Breathless, sweaty, and fatigued, the athletes are worn out after a hard training session or fight. During a typical photo shoot, Chelbin makes the athletes change poses and locations several times; sometimes she takes her subjets past the point of exhaustion to help free them from self-conscious expression. Chelbin searches for a moment in which they have almost calmed their breath but not yet regained their self-awareness. It is a moment when they have lifted their masks, and surrendered to the camera.