Sean Fader Explores The Art Of Online Dating In 'Sup?'

If you've ever taken your love life to the digital sphere, you're familiar with the stressful, agonizing and self-esteem destroying task that is creating your dating profile.

From choosing accurate yet complimentary photos to summing up your charm, wit and brains in a succinct bio, the challenge at hand is an arduous one. In an exhibition entitled "Sup?", Sean Fader explores the complexities of online representations, mixed desires and the occasional breaches of truth:

Fader spent a full year exploring 16 online dating sites, creating photographic portraits that illustrate the space between fantasy and reality when it comes to putting yourself on the internet.

Finding men who piqued his interest and visualized his expectations as judged by their profiles, Fader invited each of his subjects on a date, which always began by of pouring a glass of wine and snapping a photograph. The two then got to know each other's IRL selves, talked and collaborated on a portrait that accurately represented their online and offline personas.

Each artwork contains a profile picture, Fader's photograph, and snippets of language exchanged in the process, creating a contemporary portrait of the search for love.

Fader's "Sup?" is part of "The Participants" exhibition, showing at Denny Gallery through July 21, 2013. See more of of the series here (warning: some photos contain graphic nudity).