Andrea Meislin Gallery is pleased to present Strangely Familiar, an exhibition by New York-based photographer Michal Chelbin. Our exhibition coincides with the publication by Aperture of the monograph Strangely Familiar (essay by Leah Ollman), which presents the complete project. An opening reception and book signing will be held on Thursday, September 4th from 6 to 8 PM.

Exposing the world of performers and wrestlers across Ukraine, Eastern Europe, England, and Israel, Michal Chelbin reveals images that are both odd and ordinary to their viewers. The settings, costumes, and even some of the subjects themselves may seem exotic, but her portraits manage to unearth familiarity in the lives of her subjects. Strangely Familiar presents human stories from everyday life, those that exist in the space between fantasy and reality. By capturing her subjects in natural settings apart from their lives as performers, Chelbin creates a private moment for those who are living very public lives.

Through these subjects, Chelbin is able to address universal themes of family, normality, and puberty with all its incumbent pains and distractions. The discussion of puberty is particularly apparent in her images of adolescent girls on the verge of sexual consciousness. Torn between innocence and experience, their bodies are still childlike while their confrontational gazes can imply something very different. While many viewers note that the world discovered in these images is extraordinary Chelbin herself pronounces, “The world is indeed a strange place and I just try to show that.”

Ultimately, Chelbin’s photographs are just the beginning of the story that the viewers are left to unravel for themselves. As Leah Ollman writes, “[the images that comprise Strangely Familiar] are the jottings of a storyteller, a plethora of opening passages and character descriptions awaiting the tapestry of plot.”

Israeli-born artist Michal Chelbin has lived in the United States since 2006. Chelbin is the recipient of the Leon Constantiner Photography Award, and will be featured in this award’s exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum that opens mid-September 2008. Chelbin’s work has appeared in solo shows in Israel, Los Angeles, and New York and in group shows internationally, and is held in many private and public collections. Twin Palms will publish her second monograph in the fall of 2009.