Ella Kraimer: Appearances at The Contemporary Dayton presents a world-premiere exhibition of large-scale photographs in which the artist transforms herself into a cast of fictional personas through striking self-portraits. On view from September 25, 2026, through January 23, 2027, the exhibition brings together work that was previously viewed only as a digital project, now realized at a scale that emphasizes the physicality of costume, collage and assemblage. Kraimer uses secondhand garments gathered from thrift stores across the country, layering irony, humor and cultural critique to explore the blurred boundaries between authenticity and performance, memory and invention, self and society.
Inspired by childhood memories of paper dolls, Kraimer fragments and reconstructs her own likeness, treating the body as a site of endless revision. The photographs do not claim to reveal a true self beneath the costumes. Instead, they propose that identity is always already a performance, shaped by the images we consume and the roles we inhabit. In an age of social media, image culture and spectacle, Appearances asks viewers to reconsider not only the images we create but the stories they tell about who we are.
Kraimer spent her formative years in Berlin, Germany, and is now based in New Bremen, Ohio. She earned a BA in Design and Visual Communication from the University of Europe for Applied Sciences, Berlin, and an MA in Visual and Media Anthropology from HMKW University of Applied Sciences for Media, Communication and Management, Berlin. Her training in visual anthropology informs her approach to costume and persona, treating clothing not as disguise but as a form of cultural knowledge that can be worn, tested and remade.
The exhibition is part of the 2026 FotoFocus Biennial: The Long View, now in its eighth iteration, which activates over 70 exhibitions at museums, galleries, universities and public spaces throughout Greater Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus and Northern Kentucky. At The Contemporary Dayton, Appearances functions as both a playful intervention and a pointed critique, inviting viewers to move between recognition and estrangement as they encounter bodies that are at once familiar and invented. The work does not offer a single narrative. It presents a set of variations on the theme of selfhood, rendered through thrifted fabrics, exaggerated gestures and the knowing pleasure of becoming someone else.
Image: Ella Kraimer, Appearances No. 13, digital print. Courtesy of the artist.
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