DAYTON, OH.- The Contemporary Dayton is presenting Ella Kraimer: Appearances, a world-premiere exhibition of large-scale photographs by Ohio-based artist Ella Kraimer. On view as part of the 2026 FotoFocus Biennial: The Long View, the exhibition explores the blurred boundaries between authenticity, performance, memory, invention, one’s self, and the images we construct for others.

In Appearances, Kraimer transforms herself into a cast of fictional personas through a series of striking self-portraits. Using secondhand garments gathered from thrift stores across the country, she creates elaborate costumes and assemblages that become vehicles for inhabiting different identities. Layered with irony, humor, and cultural critique, the resulting photographs question how identity is shaped and reshaped, through clothing, image-making, cultural expectations, and performance.

Previously experienced only as a digital project, Appearances is being presented at The Contemporary Dayton as a physical exhibition of large-scale photographs, inviting viewers to encounter Kraimer’s constructed characters at an immersive scale. The project reflects on life in an age increasingly defined by social media, image culture, and spectacle, where the distinction between who we are and how we present ourselves can become increasingly difficult to discern.

Kraimer draws inspiration from childhood memories of paper dolls, in which a single figure can be transformed through an endless series of costumes and imagined roles. Through costume, collage, and assemblage, she fragments and reconstructs her own likeness, creating images that are simultaneously playful and unsettling. Her personas appear familiar yet elusive, raising questions about the stories we tell through appearance and the assumptions we make about the people we see.





“Appearances asks us to consider how much of identity is constructed through the images we make and the roles we perform,” said Heather Jones, Interim Director and Chief Curator of The Contemporary Dayton. “Kraimer approaches these questions with humor and play, but beneath the surface is a sharp examination of image culture and our desire to understand and categorize one another.”

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 in Berlin and an MA in Visual and Media Anthropology from HMKW University of Applied Sciences for Media, Communication, and Management in Berlin.