"Hortensia Mi Kafchin's Paintings Made for Aliens Above at PPOW Gallery is as remarkable for its diversity of representational strategies as it is for its pictorial content. The imagery ranges from the pastoral and surrealist to the technofuturistic. But it is the artist's treatment of trans subjectivity - not the fact of its inclusion, but its use as a metaphor for an ideal of the transhuman - that most potently distinguishes this body of work."
"Raised in Romania and now living in Berlin, Kafchin thinks like a historian by folding elements of the past - drawn both from human history and her own life - into a vision of what humanity could achieve, if we could only pull together in one life-affirming direction. The show's most effective works are those in which a temporal collapse is figured within a single canvas."
"It portrays a figure intended to be read as female standing outside of a modest country home; a ceramic jug turned upside down on the post of a nearby split-rail fence is a sign that the family is trying to marry their daughter off. But in lieu of a conventionally human form, an orange-hued bundle of wires dons the national costume."
Paintings span pastoral, surrealist, and technofuturistic imagery while centering trans subjectivity as a metaphor for transhuman possibility. Romanian roots and Berlin residence inform a practice that folds personal and collective pasts into speculative futures. Several works enact a temporal collapse within single canvases, combining historical reference and futuristic materials. In one painting, a national costume is worn by an orange-hued bundle of wires, crackling with electricity, which disrupts traditionally gendered readings and opens the figure to multiple, contrasting positions. The work favors an inclusive, life-affirming direction for humanity.
Read at Hyperallergic
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