f the photographs of Simen Johan seem almost too good to be true, you’ve gotten the point. Johan’s series Until the Kingdom Comes explores the tension between the ideal and the grotesque, the real and the unreal and revels in the gritty underside of illusion. With glitter, crystal, pearls, beads, taxidermy, bones, cocoons, dead bugs, feathers and masses of hairlike fiber, Johan creates the landscapes of your dreams just as they threaten to slip into nightmare drawing you in by their superficial luminosity. While he works in both photography and sculpture, his photography employs taxidermy and live animals carefully superimposed on backdrops photographed in Iceland, Norway, and elsewhere. Simen Johan was born in Norway. He lives in New York where he is represented by Yossi Milo Gallery. His work is in many public collections including: The Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio. More about Simen at the link below.
www.simenjohan.com
