P·P·O·W is pleased to present Paintings Made for Aliens Above, Hortensia Mi Kafchin’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Uniting a highly classical painting style with a distinctive range of personal iconography, Kafchin vividly portrays her daily life through utopian scenes that comment on the technological, environmental, and socio-political realities of our time. In a new series of oil paintings, Kafchin imagines possible futures in which the human condition is transcended through technological advancement while grappling with the cruel realities inherent to humanity’s current psychological and biological state. Throughout the exhibition, Kafchin visualizes her own consciousness in various trans techno avatars who explore the Infinite and connect with celestial strangers. Accompanied by an essay written by the artist, Paintings Made for Aliens Above meditates upon how otherworldly beings might perceive Kafchin’s work and what evolved dialogues could be shared once the human species overcomes its wars, suffering, depravity, and ignorance.  

Kafchin grounds her futuristic scenes in historied artistic traditions, from ancient Greece to the Northern Renaissance. In the diptych Transhumanism and narcissism & Dr. Ramani warning us about narcissism, 2024-25, Kafchin pairs a finely detailed portrait of her mentor, famed American clinical psychologist, Dr. Ramani Durvasula, with a dreamlike image of herself as a limitless cyborg. The classically rendered portrait depicts Dr. Ramani mid-sentence, speaking on the dangers of the contemporary drive to “fix” the human condition through technology and its reflection of our culture’s narcissism, escapism, and self-hatred. As a counterpart to the psychologist’s message, the left half of the diptych encapsulates Kafchin’s desires as a futuristic, electronic angel set against a backdrop of seductive red pigment. Her electric tendrils vibrate through geometric joints and out her skull like an ever-flowing mane of robotic hair. By pairing the portraits together, Kafchin heed’s the doctor’s warning while expressing her own profound longing for an existence uninhibited by flesh. 

Interspersed with visions of worlds beyond our own, Kafchin paints glimpses of her earthly journey, from fiery sunsets in Berlin to misty evenings in Cluj. In works such as In Full A.I. Revolution / After FFS, 2024-25, Kafchin depicts herself navigating the clothing racks of a department store in the wake of receiving facial feminization surgery. Hair wiry, eyes darting, and shoelaces tied together, Kafchin clasps a hot pink, bejeweled dress amid a precarious dance of gender presentation. A large robotic head looms over the scene, observing through sterile binary code as the entire store seems to edge towards a jagged cliff leading into oblivion.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an original zine featuring an essay by the artist, which will be available for purchase.