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Skin. And Grace I - Gazing Soft
A photographic and documentary project by Igor Mattio
Publication date: August 15, 2026
ISBN: 979-8-9964524-0-8
Skin and Grace began with a question: What does masculinity look like when movement stops?
Across Cuba, I worked with four professional ballet dancers, photographing not performance but stillness—the moments between rehearsals, after exertion, when discipline remains inscribed on the body but no longer needs to announce itself.
In these quiet intervals, the body becomes more than an instrument. It becomes a record of repetition, sacrifice, resistance, vulnerability, and desire.
The project developed through days spent traveling, rehearsing, eating, and living alongside the dancers. Rather than photographing ballet, the work considers the lives shaped by it. Although the images are constructed, they grew from relationships built over time, allowing gesture and presence to take the place of performance.
An accompanying documentary extends this encounter. The dancers speak candidly about their beginnings, ambitions, sexual orientation, experiences of coming out, and the challenge of pursuing ballet within a culture where traditional ideas of masculinity remain deeply rooted. Their voices reveal strength and vulnerability not as opposites, but as qualities that can inhabit the same body.
The journey also transformed the project itself. Initially conceived as a dialogue between five dancers and five athletes, unforeseen circumstances led to something more intimate. What emerged was not the work I had planned, but the work Cuba allowed to exist: Skin and Grace I. Encounters with younger students at the Escuela Nacional de Ballet also revealed the beginnings of a second chapter, still in development.
The first volume is a 96-page hardcover photobook combining color and black-and-white photographs. The edition is limited to 600 copies.
A 60-minute documentary film will be released separately in fall 2026.
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Excerpt from the Book
“I came to Cuba drawn by movement, yet I found myself waiting for stillness. The instant when rehearsal ends, when choreography falls away, and only the body remains. There, discipline becomes visible—not as spectacle, but as memory written beneath the skin.
The dancers speak of ambition, family, desire, and the cost of becoming who they are. Their stories reveal that masculinity is neither fixed nor singular. It is negotiated, questioned, resisted, and continually remade.
The project itself followed the same path. What began as ten men across different worlds became four dancers and, unexpectedly, the first traces of another story. Cuba changed the work as much as the work sought to understand Cuba. Sometimes the project we finish is not the one we imagined, but the one reality patiently reveals.”
About the Author
Igor Mattio is a renowned visual artist who blends photography and drawing to create bold and surreal works. His focus on silver gelatin prints in numbered editions has earned him acclaim in the art world. “Skin. And Under” is his latest project, reflecting his deep desire to capture the authentic and vulnerable states of being.
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