Michele Abeles: Photographs
Wednesday, January 30, 2008“I am drawn to portraiture because nothing is more fascinating, complex, ugly and beautiful than human beings,” photographer Michele Abeles is quoted as saying to PDN.
Abeles made some pretty interesting work during the last few years while she was studying in the MFA program at Yale and her photographs have received quite a bit of attention already. An update on her current project is yet to appear on her website – at the moment, however, it is under construction.
With that in mind, I thought I’d share a few of her images here. The first two are from her early work, pre 2005. I thought Anthony Lasala did a pretty great job of describing the first photograph.
There is an image taken by photographer Michele Abeles, a salient photograph of a mischievously smiling man kneeling in the corner of a grey carpeted room, a wide-eyed, diapered infant casually posed on his lap – a tiny, white-feathered bird perched on his shoulder. All three participants seem as if they were born into this life for this instant, waiting for Abeles’ camera to find them and capture them at that very moment. The scene is both calmly bizarre and intriguingly spiritual – two feelings that saturate the images created by Abeles and elevate her photographs from common to conspicuous.
Untitled
© Michele Abeles
Untitled
© Michele Abeles
And the following photographs are from Abeles’ more recent body work, which shown at her Yale thesis show in 2007 – the series tentatively titled BadLands.
Bridalveil Fall (Almost Lost Her), 2006 (from “BadLands”)
© Michele Abeles
The Young People Who Reminded Us Of Ourselves, 2006 (from “BadLands”)
© Michele Abeles
Vista (Winter Time), 2007 (from “BadLands”)
© Michele Abeles
German Shepherds, 2006 (from “BadLands”)
© Michele Abeles
For now, more of her work can be seen here or here.
(thanks Noel)
January 30th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I have to say I am not sure where the hype comes from… the first image is above is realtively strong, the others falter. This same pattern goes for the other images that I have seen. Sometimes unfortunately hype itself becomes very much self perpetuating, driving the art forward where the art has little legs to stand on… the hype itself then becoming the legs.
That being said… at least her quote here is strong.
“In my photographs, I want there to be a sense of looming violence in the broadest sense. Like there is something boiling beneath the surface, I try to bring this out through my interactions with the subject and by attempting to imbue a sense of mystery and knowledge in image of my subjects. As a result, I hope a certain amount of tension and mystery will emanate from my pictures.‚Äù
Yes, that combo typically makes for very strong portrait photography.. tension and a hint of violence. Now, if I could just find that potent mix in her imagery………
February 1st, 2008 at 10:06 pm
What hype?
February 1st, 2008 at 10:23 pm
It’s refreshing to see work that is challenging in that it does not kill the viewer with the same idea over and over and over in a serial manner. She seems to be out there discovering the world and challenging the viewer. Unfortunately, these days it is hard to find interesting work that is genuine in its openness to discovery and interpretation. Perhaps there could be a better edit than we have seen on this site. Was this her inteded edit?
February 4th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Shane-
I have to say, I have thought about these photographs here and there over the last week… that is something and not very typical. In essence, they have strangely grown on me like a tumor… the 80’s style serial killer boy teen prom picture, 70’s style serial killeryosemite landscape, the strange bird martyr cult leader and his seed, the trailer park father and his slain boy… the wolves straight from Hell… the crazy, crazy completely disjointed aesthetic… all have drawn me back in a bit.
My first reaction is a bit different then the one that simmered slowly under the skin, eh…
And based on my recent words… perhaps her hint of violence is no joke.
dR