| Beyond
The Portrait
Leora Cheshin’s photographs lead the viewer into the realms of
childhood and the soul. Each group of nine photographs presents a range
of emotions in various facial expressions, accompanied by the subject’s
handwritten memories.
Cheshin has made each photographic piece into a kind of book allowing
the viewer to read each face line by line. Like a tic-tac-toe board, we
look at the faces vertically, horizontally and diagonally. We can observe
the handwriting as contents, letter-forms or as rapid drawing.
Cheshin’s photographs focus on the subject’s face in close-up,
which fills the frame. There are no background details, no body or hands
that could interpret character. The lens explores each subject like a
spy and documents every detail: freckles, skin pigmentation, direction
of hair growth, strokes of make-up and any bare hint of expression.
The process may remind us of a science fiction film depicting a fantastic
voyage through the human body by a miniaturized ship. The tiny crew was
deeply moved by the body’s grandeur. In Cheshin’s photographs,
the proximity of the lens to the subject’s face makes the viewer
feel that he is on a similar journey of intimate exploration. The portrait’s
topographical signposts reveal qualities of character and mood: the wrinkles
at the sides of the mouth, the eyebrows, the lips, the gaze.
Leora Cheshin has multiplied the portrait nine-fold: each photograph differs
in the type and intensity of expression, angle of the head, direction
of the gaze, and the way the light strikes the face. The shadows falling
on the faces change and the expressions vary. The facial expressions bring
to mind a silent movie without any subtitles; the task of interpretation
now falls on the spectator.
Each picture group includes one photograph with a striking similarity
to the childhood photograph of the subject, a sort of Ariadne’s
thread guiding the viewer from the past into the present. The photographs
beckon the viewer to explore the connections between the photographs,
expressions and handwriting, and the past and present.
Ayana Friedman,
Curator and Lecturer 2001.
<<Back
|