Extensions

 

For Chart Art Fair we are presenting new works by the artist duo Inka & Niclas, showcasing their continued exploration into the materiality of photography and their interest in contemporary perceptions of nature through the photographic medium.

Inka & Niclas manipulate the visual mechanics of nature photographs and playfully examine the everyday usage of landscape imagery. The artists probe the desire to consume nature through travels and photography, and present oneself as being in harmony with nature. The presentation at Chart Art Fair consists of a combination of different bodies of work that revolve around this central theme.

In the mechanics of traveling and photography, a beautiful photo of a beach means that more photos will be taken of that same beach. This is true also in the case of Extensions, where the artists, before leaving home, identified the most popular photo spots at the tropical islands of Saô Tomé and Principe. In the works, the flashgun has left its usual position and turned 180 degrees, now aiming straight towards the photographer and us as viewers. The light striking the lens creates a sparkle as from a diamond. With the addition of extra bling to the hyper-romantic tropical beaches depicted, the artists points at the circulation of nature imagery as a commodity.

Extensions taps into the vibrant, glossy realm of fashion and style. Wall mounted hair sculptures depict scenery and details from a tropical adventure. The title is de- scriptive, yet it plays with the notion of social positioning and building one’s identity by wearing your experiences and exposing the moments as a status marker through one’s body. Not only a hair extension in its most concrete sense, but an identity extension that reveals who we want to be.

Family Portraits is a collection of self-portraits taken of the artists and their two children, in idyllic panoramic settings. All dressed up in full reflective body suits that bounce the light of the flash back into the camera lens, the shapes of what we read as a family constellation indicate anonymity. The camera that was supposed to capture them, instead erased them. The role of nature as an enduring source to idealization remains untouched.

The photographic sculptures in Sunset Photography consist of seascapes and sunsets solidified in a state of wetness. The glass-like, slimy creases of the sculpture hides and obscures. Only parts of the romantic scenery are visible and we can only imagine the beauty of the initial image, the viewer is thus invited to fill the void with one’s desires and ideas of the perfect shot.