Cheryl Koralik

Cheryl Koralik's career as a photographer began while studying at Columbia College in Chicago under the tutelage of Bob Thall, Ruth Thorne-Thomsen and Alan Cohen. These mentors helped Her develop a particular affinity for portraiture and encouraged me to explore fashion photography.

Her Fashion photography included shootingfashion editorials for magazines such as Vogue, Marie Claire and Harper's Bazaar.  For many years, her work focused on advertising including award-winning campaigns for BMW, British Airways, MasterCard, Martell Cognac and the Smithsonian Institution, among others. The awards included a Ceba for Excellence (1990),Communication Arts Award for Excellence (1991, 1995, 1999 and 2001), the Art Directors Club Annual Exhibition (1991), a Studio Magazine Annual Award of Excellence (1992), and an Annual American Photography Award of Excellence (1995).

During this time, she was reintroduced to portraiture, shooting personage such as John Hurt, Willem Dafoe and John Lee Hooker for clients including Rolling Stone, Harper's Bazaar and Vibe  magazines. Through this work she reconnected with my photographic origins and realized that, at this point in her journey as an artist, she needed to take her work to a more personally gratifying level.

She began to explore a photojournalistic path and traveled to India and Burkina Faso on humanitarian assignments with the non-governmental organization, Action on Disability and Development. This is when she discovered the West African masques. And, suddenly, with an organic force and a passionate surge of obligation, her life changed completely. She found her true voice. Thus began a new chapter in her photographic career—the masque series.

Over the next two decades, she made several expeditions to various West African countries, researching and photographing tribal masques—mediums of the spirit world—and their associated rituals. Based on the ancient belief system of animism, the ceremonial masques are a tradition that has been passed down through generations. This documentation is a portrait of a secret society, a sacred part of African heritage.

The masque photographs have been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums including the Musée de L'Elysée in Lausanne, the Center of Photography in Woodstock, and Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe. A selection of the masque series resides in the permanent collection of the Musée de L'Eysée as well as other private collections. These photographs have been featured in publications including The Sunday Times  magazine,Blind Spot, Good Weekend Magazine/The Sydney Morning Herald , So It Goes, and The Unseen Eye  by Thames & Hudson, as part of William M. Hunt's photographic collection.

According to photographer, Cheryl Koralik: "It was February 1991 when my feet first touched on the West African soil of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. And as if it were yesterday, those initial visuals remain vivid in my mind’s eye....This is when it began, my love affair with Africa: the people, the culture, the history, the music, the laughter, and the magic. Like an injection, it was in my blood. Immediately and forever.

One day, while driving through Bobo in the oppressive Sahelian midday heat, my eyes were struck with something I had never seen before: men adorned in raffia (a straw-like fiber) were running through the streets with whips. I followed the men and discovered a whole new world—the spirit world of West Africa and the sacred masques*. The chief of the village had died and, for weeks on end, the funereal rites would continue. Tradition played its role as guns fired in salute, the women sang a cappella and, as the balafons (West African xylophone) began to play, the sacred masques danced themselves into trances, acting as mediators while channeling the supernatural world of the dead in order to safely lead the deceased’s soul to rest with those of his ancestors: ceremonial protection through animistic beliefs, the spirit world unveiled.

Curiosity and a desire for more knowledge of this fanfare led me to visit with the village elders, who welcomed me and spoke mostly through parables and proverbs carried down from generation to generation. From them I learned more about animism, an ancient belief system, which predates the arrival of Christianity and Islam into West Africa. I learned that in animism everything has a soul: animals, plants, trees, rivers, even inanimate objects, giving reason to everything that happens in life and to life itself. They explained the sacredness of the tribal masques: how the appointed artist would first pray, asking forgiveness of the tree from which he would carve the wood for a masque; how young boys were chosen to enter the sacred forest and, through their rites of passage, would or would not be initiated into the secret society as a masque; how they learned from their elders the secret codes and languages that had been passed down through the ages.

After many days of educating myself about this new found culture, I was granted permission by the deceased chief’s son to photograph the masques. But in order to do so, I first needed to offer them a sacrifice—which was simply, a case of Solibra, the local beer. I could only communicate with the masques through a translator, since, once robed, they only speak in the secret tongue they learned in the sacred forest. By the second day, a mutual trust and respect had developed between us. Thus began for me a new quest, a new photographic endeavor and a new journey—one filled with passion and magic that would take me to several West African countries.

Almost 20 years later, my love for Africa has not diminished. And the road continues, like an Ali Farka song."