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Ralph Eugene Meatyard — Lucybelle Crater and Lucybelle Crater
Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Lucybelle Crater and Lucybelle Crater

A masked figure in a grotesque rubber Halloween mask stands alongside another similarly masked presence in a domestic or rural setting, creating an uncanny sense of anonymity and duality. Meatyard's use of identical masks erases individual identity, suggesting that all human relationships are filtered through constructed personas and the unknowable nature of others. The stark black-and-white gelatin silver print amplifies the eerie tension between the familiar and the deeply unsettling.

Medium
Gelatin silver print.

🔨 Auction Lot

A Constant Pursuit: Photographs from the Collection of Ed Cohen & Victoria Shaw

October 4, 2018

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About this work

Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Lucybelle Crater and Lucybelle Crater

A masked figure in a grotesque rubber Halloween mask stands alongside another similarly masked presence in a domestic or rural setting, creating an uncanny sense of anonymity and duality. Meatyard's use of identical masks erases individual identity, suggesting that all human relationships are filtered through constructed personas and the unknowable nature of others. The stark black-and-white gelatin silver print amplifies the eerie tension between the familiar and the deeply unsettling.

Medium
Gelatin silver print.
Seen at
Phillips, New York, London, Hong Kong

Related themes

Surrealism, Conceptual Photography, 20th Century, Unsettling Mood, Male Artist, Black and White Photography, Masked Figures, Gelatin Silver Print, American Photographer, Square Format, Outsider Aesthetic

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