Emma Stern has cracked the code of weaving technology into traditional. She builds her fantastical subjects using 3D software then she paints them in oils. It turns technology’s ability to make everything hyper real and high definition on its head, softening the cyber sheen with the tangible texture of paint. What we then see if something surreal, made by computer and human, a dream of everything that’s enticing and threatening. And since her inspiration—like my own—comes from the blown-open skull that is the internet, these images really do contain bits and pieces of everything we find enticing and threatening, sex and violence, joy and loneliness. Scroll through some of her work below and you’ll see what I mean! Her exhibition “Hell is Hot” is showing now at Almine Rech Paris from April 26 to June 7, 2025.
I am obviously extremely influenced by the aesthetics and tropes of so many niche micro-communities of furries, 3D erotica and various fandoms, for example, which I would likely never have come into contact with were it not for the fact that I am very much online.
I will say though, my bookmarked tabs and search history is bonkers. My assigned NSA agent is probably very concerned.
