Issue 33: "Self Un-titled" | photo essay by Featured Artist Sam Geballe
"I can find many reasons to explain why I ate, but it would be all too easy to displace blame. What people do not realize are the functions of my size: I used my weight as a barrier..."
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“My entire adult life has been about being intentionally vulnerable in hopes of getting better; that vulnerability is an invitation to meet me in my art to connect and find shared experience.” — Sam Geballe
Self-Untitled by Featured Artist Sam Geballe
Issue 33’s featured artist Sam Geballe is an artist living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sam’s involvement in art began in early childhood, and they have frequently used creative expression as a means of communication and connection to their self and others. In 2013, Sam began work on a self-portrait series, Self-Untitled. The series explores themes of body image, memory, gender, trauma, and healing. In addition to photographs, Sam incorporates bookmaking, drawing, filmmaking, and music composition. They continue their self-portraiture work as a daily practice and ongoing memoir. Sam uses the pronouns he/they and identifies as trans genderqueer.
ARTIST STATEMENT: 2013-PRESENT
This is not another fat kid story. There are times when I do assume that role, but it does not define me. I can find many reasons to explain why I ate, but it would be all too easy to displace blame.
What people do not realize are the functions of my size: I used my weight as a barrier to mask vulnerability and create walls as a way to protect myself. It is how I survived.
I make self-portraits to shift perspective from how I see myself to my interpretation of how others see me. Self-Untitled visualizes the feeling that false perceptions provoke, and speaks more broadly to the mistreatment of a person. Self-Untitled is a body of work that requires fearlessness. I have had to set aside doubts to convey my intended message. I think people's assumptions arise from their own personal history. My assumptions emerge when I make conclusions about the present through the lens of past experiences. This pattern is cyclical, but I can change the outcome by humanizing myself to others. What I have learned and strive to depict in my art is that being vulnerable and forming connections can be healing.
I share my story as an opportunity for a viewer to say, “I’ve been there too.”
UPDATE 2022-PRESENT
In 2014, I had gastric bypass and my life radically changed. Most of my excess weight lifted within a year. The changes were drastic. Being alive was unbelievably easier. I could breathe, but I was also devastated to learn that I had no idea who I was…
Read and view the full photo essay “Self-Untitled” on KHÔRA.
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With galactic gratitude,
Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/KHÔRA squad
Swim around in KHÔRA.
Artists and Writers
We’re looking for new work from artists and writers for our upcoming Summer Special Edition. To enter KHÔRA’s collaborative waters:
Writers, read about KHÔRA’s 500 Words here.
Artists, send your artwork to KHÔRA's Images here.
Many thanks to all of you who have sent us work. Your words/images will always remain active in KHÔRA’s ocean, and you won’t ever receive a notice of rejection from us. We know this process is not perfect; we wish to stay open to the possibility that at any point, your work will be a fit for a curated issue or team collaboration.
If you love what you’re seeing, please subscribe, share, tweet, retweet, and post, and KHÔRA will be back soon.