On January 9th, Andrea Meislin Gallery opened Naomi Leshem’s Centered Exhibition, the artists 2nd exhibit at the gallery. Leshem was born in 1963 and lives in Kiryat Ono, near Tel Aviv. With her degree in Photography from Hadassah College in Jerusalem, she has been able to exhibit her work throughout Europe, Israel and the United States. She is a recipient of the Constantiner Photography Award for an Israeli Artist from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and her photographs are in the collections of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; the Norton Museum of Art, Florida; the Shpilman Institute for photography; along with many notable private collections.

Leshem created her Centered collection that consists of 10 photographs for the exhibit. Each photograph is centered around a single figure–five male and five female–each placed in a challenging physical or psychological situation.

Each figure was then asked to cope with the difficult situation at hand by finding a sense of order and balance. The ten individuals must find their center, where the photograph is taken. Although the image is taken while the individuals are in stasis, this deceptive calm is only found after the individual faces a major struggle. These images are centered around a common theme of “struggling to surrender,” and explore deeper issues facing the world at large. These situations shed light on the questions of gender stereotypes, the role of the individual in a larger societal context, and the relevance of a physical place to one’s identity.

Leshem travelled the world asking strangers for their impressions of each photograph. The foreigners were asked to write their responses by hand in their native language. She pairs her photographs with the foreign responses proving that project is both international and local, providing a global context that is increasingly important in our complex world.

Naomi Leshem will do a book signing and gallery talk in conjunction with this exhibition on Saturday, January 18, 2014 from 2 – 4 pm.