For her 2008 show, ‘PEACE & LOVE: Homage to Robert Indiana’, Silas Shabelewska produced a series of photographs inspired by the Indiana’s renowned 1970s ‘LOVE’ sculptures. Interested in the general attitudes towards the word “love” and its universal meaning, Shabelewska aims to extract these feelings through serene images of nude male and female models posed as the word LOVE. Capturing her choreographed ‘LOVE’ scenes from a 30-foot crane, Shabelewska provides a comforting and peaceful presentation of the word as though floating through space. While commenting on the global perception of love, Shabelewska also expresses the theme on a more intimate level by arranging the models in various degrees of intimacy to give each image a unique sense of reality. In 2009, 'LOVE 7' from this series was featured in the exhibition, 'The Art of Caring, A Look at Life Through Photography' at The New Orleans Museum of Art.
With a passion for the artistry and practice of photography, Polish-American photographer Silas Shabelewska (b. 1963) has been exploring the medium since her youth in the South of France. As a self-taught artist, Shabelewska studied world renown artists Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Edward Steichen, and Alfred Stieglitz; and at the age of 16 taught herself the gelatin silver print process. In 1984, she enrolled at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. With her passion and knowledge, Shabelewska pursues methods of “pure” photography, bypassing any alterations or digital manipulations, with a 19th century aesthetic that evokes the sense of textured drawing. Shabelewska continues to grow as a photographer, using those artists and stylistic inspirations as her muse. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world, and was most recently featured in the New Orleans Museum of Art 2009 exhibition, ‘The Art of Caring, A Look at Life Through Photography’, which travelled to the Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX; Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, FL; and Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, Cincinnati, OH in 2011.
