"SEE ME" photographs by Michal Chelbin. Open House & Artist Talk

“SEE ME” explores the artist’s play on one’s identity. Michal 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 mythical; she searches for people who have a legendary quality in them.

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.