Paul Shiakallis
Photographer
Paul Shiakallis is drawn to photographing places and objects that are “lost in time, so that if you look at the image now or 10 years from now, you won’t be able to place it”.
The feeling of being removed from reality is one the photographer holds dear. It permeates much of his work, enabling him to bring a lyricism to common social dysfunctions.
In Something So Familiar, a 2012 series Shiakallis compiled in the Unites States and South Africa, he uses the potent motif of the TV’s glow as a conduit to convey the isolation of suburban domestic life.
In Portraits of a Still Life, Shiakallis’ subjects are almost not present, their rearranged ornaments functioning as a stand-in for their personality and humanity. The photographs raise questions: What does it mean to possess material items (in this series, much of it is antiquated) and what does it speak of our relationship to time?
A Tshwane University of Technology photography graduate, Shiakallis was born in Johannesburg in 1982 to Cyprian parents.
Although he’s an accomplished commercial photographer with clients such as Coca-Cola, MTN and Mercedes-Benz, it is his creative documentary work that towers above all else.
“Removal from reality is my gravity,” says Shiakallis of his documentary practice.
“I like to stage real-life documentary, so that it momentarily removes me and the viewer from our own realities when we view the work. My lighting tends to isolate areas of a scene — though I would say that lighting is only 10% of an image. If anything is eliciting emotion, it would be the subject matter itself.”
There’s a sci-fi edge running through Shiakallis’ Leathered Skins Unchained Hearts — The Queens of Marok, a series that documents women in the Marok (metal) scene in Botswana.
The photographer enhances this edge by allowing his subjects to turn away from the camera, or by photographing them away from the context associated with their choice of music.
Even the associated landscape photographs of Batswana villages slipping into modernity have a futuristic glint when run through Shiakallis’ outlook.
Leathered Skins has emerged as his signature work after being published in Europe and in the US by more than 35 publications.
This project will be exhibited in India later this year, alongside the work of other artists focusing on feminism at the Focus Photo Festival.
“I am looking at promoting it more locally in South Africa,” he said, “as I believe it is a socially relevant topic in the areas of freedom of speech, thought and empowerment of the individual.”
Shiakallis is currently working on a project around Hillbrow nightlife, which he says “is an exploration of how people and the structures influence the dynamic between sex, love and companionship”.