Coke Wisdom O'Neal's Boxed in Nudes

Installation view, Blue Nude

Coke Wisdom O'Neal has a really nice photography show up at Mixed Greens in Chelsea at the moment. Continuing his work with boxes, he photograped his subjects inside tight, clear plexiglass boxes and them mounted the prints with a plexiglass frame that mimics the models enclosure in the image. The result is beautifully fleshly and vulnerable. Rarely does one see faces, and the focus turns more onto the hands or hips of the person. There is a great luminous quality to the skin tones that really adds to the little details: the little rolls of a sotmach or the wrinkles of an arched foot.

I love see the flesh pressed against the glass, reminding one that these contorted figures are indeed contained. Its makes for a nice study of the human form, although within the models limp poses it suggests more along the lines of captivity and restraint, freedom and identity than pure aesthetic study.

Installation View, Blue Nude

The single figures also speak of lonliness.