Self-Untitled

It would be tempting to pigeonhole Samantha Geballe’s ​“Self-Untitled” as simply being about body image and weight loss. It is an ongoing project that spans the years before, during, and after her gastric bypass surgery. However, I believe that this project is much more than that. Geballe articulates complicated psychological states, using her relationship with her body to express them. Her images achieve two seemingly contradictory modes of presentation at once. She shows herself in an unusually unguarded and incredibly vulnerable manner. At the same time her images are constructed so that she is often obscured, masked or distorted.

Geballe uses light and shadow, water, reflections and a host of other tools to veil and unveil herself. I get the sense that Geballe might even view her own skin as one of these veils- an ever changing scrim that that sometimes stretches her into focus and other times overwhelms and swallows her.

​“Self ‑Untitled” is unlike anything I have seen before. It is as if Geballe has created her own visual language and inner logic for her work and uses it unapologetically. Immersing myself in her images feels like stepping inside her inner world. There is incredible energy behind these images- they buzz and hum and don’t allow me to look away.

-Mia D.


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