In 1993, Johan drew attention for his work merging digital manipulation with traditional darkroom techniques.[2] At a time when digital photo processing was in its infancy, Johan found ways to exploit the medium beyond the boundaries of what was then considered possible. His images recombined fragments of faces and bodies (including his own) into new characters, which he then situated into similarly fabricated scenes. By collaborating with a medical lab, Johan was able to produce "negatives", allowing him to use traditional darkroom processes to create sepia toned silver gelatin prints.[3] By the mid-90s, his work was frequently featured in exhibitions spearheading digital art, including Bit by Bit: Postphotographic Imaging, at Hunter College, New York, and (R)evolution, at Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan, Italy.[1][4]
Later work and career
With his series Evidence of Things Unseen (2000-2004), Johan began creating large format color prints.[3][5] In a review for The Village Voice, Vince Aletti wrote: "Johan's...new pictures continue to plumb a troubled dream world where fantasy and ritual meet. In virtually all of these images, solitary, self-possessed youngsters appear to be engaged in bizarre masquerades... There's an edge of horror and derangement in these photos that's all the more disturbing because it seems as much a projection of the child's imagination as the photographer's."[6] A traveling museum exhibition of this series was organized by Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, Norway, and the National Art Museum of Lithuania.[4]
In 2005, Johan shifted his focus towards the natural world, at the same time also beginning to create sculptural works. The images in his series Until the Kingdom Comes incorporate elements photographed in a wide variety of locations around the world,[7] including both wild and captive animals.[8] According to the New Yorker, "At nearly six feet by eight feet, the largest of these pictures rival natural-history dioramas, but very little is natural about this menagerie. A deer in a snowy forest is uncannily white; malevolent snakes curl around sticks and one another in a sunny ravine, like fugitives from Dante's Inferno. Johan undermines even his most convincing fictions, and the nagging sense that something is wrong here keeps viewers just where he wants us: on edge."[9] The sculptures, as featured in the New York Times "incorporate taxidermy, insects and foliage into parasitical eco-systems resonant with the vitality of ritualistic headdresses",[10] while others, shaped like meteorites, were constructed from barnacles, cement and fiber optics.[11] Solo exhibitions of Until the Kingdom Comes were presented at Brown University, Providence, RI; the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville and at the Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX.[8] A limited edition book was published in 2014.[12]
Norsk Museum for Fotografi - Preus Fotomuseum, Norway
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA
21C Museum, Louisville, KY
Art and Learning Center & Union Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
Chazen Museum of Art, UW-Madison
References
^ ab"Biography". Simen Johan (Exhibition Catalogue). Oslo, Norway: Kunstnernes Hus. 2004. pp. 44–46. ISBN82-7111-050-0.
^Heiner, Cathy (July 8, 1993). "Photos from a Twentysomething Point of View". USA Today. p. 5D.
^ abColeman, A.D. (2004). "Painting with Photographs: The Hybrid Vision of Simen Johan". Simen Johan (Exhibition Catalogue). Oslo, Norway: Kunstnernes Hus. pp. 41–43. ISBN82-7111-050-0.
^ abcde"CV". Archived from the original on February 24, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
^ ab"Press Release". Yossi Milo Gallery. Archived from the original on February 24, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
^"Goings on About Town: Simen Johan". The New Yorker. September 21, 2009. p. 20.
^Angier, Natalie (May 3, 2010). "Art That Was Once Alive". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
^La Ferla, Ruth (September 29, 2010). "What Walls Say in 'Wall Street'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 15, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017.