"Self-expression through digital media"
«EXTRA ULTRA» is an exaggerated grotesque reflection of the popular culture in a digital age. The dark dramatic characters inside the photos appear to be too artificial and theatrical, but in some ways stay extremely honest and intimate.
Projects 2024:
Olympia 2K24
In the series of works "Olympia 2K24" the focus is on the relationship between digitality and eros. Manet’s Olympia serves as an important reference. This famous painting once caused a scandal by showing a prostitute looking at the viewer with a composed and steady gaze in an impressionist manner. EXTRA ULTRA’s depiction contrasts starkly with this.
While Manet provoked with sparse means and female symbolism, EXTRA ULTRA employs dazzling scenes and covered female bodies. Her figures neither look the viewer in the face nor need to cover themselves. The hands rest comfortably on their laps, fan themselves, or hold flowers that do not need to be brought to them. Their interest is in themselves. EXTRA ULTRA’s figures do not fit into an impressionist composition but exist in decadent 3D worlds. The eroticism arises only through the world of objects. EXTRA ULTRA plays here with different levels of reality. The digital worlds that radiate into the real become extensions of herself. Virtual objects are accompanied by extravagant costumes and physical objects. Her works gain a plasticity that questions the relationship between digital worlds and materiality.
While digital worlds seemingly offer endless possibilities, their unlimited availability finds a limit in the female body. It is regulated and censored on social media, while the virtual world of objects experiences a new eroticization. Its exclusion makes it again the erotic center, to which EXTRA ULTRA is both compelled and empowered.
Text - Armin Dadras