The SHSadler photography duo of Julia Sandberg Hansson and Nic Sadler subvert concepts of beauty and challenge the prevailing aesthetics of consumerist society.
For the past fifteen years, Sweden's Julia Sandberg Hansson and Britain's Nic Sadler, known as SHSadler, have been confronting the omnipresence of Western norms, beauty standards, diktats of appearance and consumer culture. Sleek aesthetics, vivid colors and scathing humor vie for center stage in their photographic series. Examples include Fresh Meat, Messy Fruit, Mugshots and Clusters.
"All these images can be summed up in one overriding objective," explains Nic Sadler. "We think of them as a form of sculpture. We also think of objects and people, but not photography. They become a record of what we physically create and what happens in the process. We have a set of guiding objectives and remain open to serendipity."
Messy Fruit (F3) - ©SHSadler
Theaesthetic influence ofimages
The two Los Angeles-based virtuosos challenge the ever-changing social pressures of the digital age. Together, they marvelously combine their visions, skills and ideas on the evolution of the medium.
Julia SH graduated from Central Saint Martins and the Slade School of Fine Art in London in film, video, performance and media. She is the recipient of several photography awards. Nic Sadler, who attended Curtin University in Perth, Australia, also acts as cinematographer for music videos, commercials and feature films. He won an Emmy in 2018 for his Artemis application system, dedicated to filmmakers and photographers.
"When we were kids, photography was an expensive business," Nic Sadler recalls. "Photos were taken sparingly. Carefully composed. Cost-conscious. Today, all that has changed. It has become democratic. The impact on society is due to the fact that young people know the mechanisms and how they are represented. This gives them a certain control over the process. And just as the models of the past were people for whom physical appearance was a commodity, it's now a factor in young people's identity: their image on Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok. We live in the age of the commodification of the self. That's the basic idea behind Fresh Meat: what's its end point?"
Clusters (Lillian) - ©SHSadler
The alienation of physical perfection
While Mugshots transcends the idea of the mug shot, Fresh Meat is undoubtedly the most satirical of their series. It's also the most talked-about. The duo explore the obsessive madness of youth, beauty, selfies and filters in the culture of appearance and (over)consumption, and its environmental and food-related repercussions. Through their acerbic eyes, it seems to be "just a question of packaging and the right labels".
The models' faces are wrapped in plastic like pieces of meat in a supermarket. It's all there: the expiry date (4 numbers), the names of the women/products (Emory, Bad Wolfy), details of the ingredients (eyes, glow, lips) and the price before and after tax. Through their exaggeration, these images demonstrate, in this cutting-up of human slices, the unfulfilled delirium of vain, ephemeral appearance.
A well-established theme that the duo continue to develop in their future projects, to further explore "representations of beauty and the combination of influences in confronting merchandise". In the summer of 2025, they plan to exhibit their work in Los Angeles and Ibiza.
