Saturday is your last chance to check out Conspiracy of Ravens, Simen Johan’s latest exhibition at Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea. The show features Johan’s “psychologically charged” digitally manipulated images of “animals in turbulent scenes of power play and theatrical poses,” according the press release.
Simen Johan, Untitled #198, 2019
Johan creates stunning, evocative images that are staged or constructed in Photoshop, combining multiple images of wildlife, landscapes, and backgrounds shot at zoos, safari parks, wildlife sanctuaries, jungles, and rainforests from all around the globe. “Photoshop allows me to create imaginary worlds the way a painter always could, but unlike a painter I do have to first photograph every element that I want to incorporate, so I travel a lot and over the years I’ve built an image library of different animals, plants, and landscapes,” Johan explained at a talk hosted by Red Hook Labs in December. Stephen Frailey, Director of Education for Red Hook Labs, introduced Johan at the event. Frailey was one of Johan’s professors at the School of Visual Arts in the early 90s. Johan received his BFA from SVA in 1996.
Simen Johan, Untitled #196, 2018
Born in Norway, Johan grew up in Sweden with aspirations of becoming a filmmaker. “Filmmaking to me felt like the most engaging art form there was,” he said. The artist was inspired by Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, and David Cronenberg, whose films “reveal complex truths about life, people, and the world.”
Johan switched his focus from film to photography after he learned that he was “too broke to produce anything” and "too shy" to communicate his story ideas. “Even as a photographer I continued to have cinematic ambitions,” he said. “I wanted to construct photographs rather than document them and from the beginning I looked for ways to stage and construct my photographs. At first I would manually cut and paste my images into narratives and collages and then in my second year I discovered Photoshop which I’ve been working with ever since.”
Johan explained that he does not interact with the animals he photographs, so in order to achieve specific poses he shoots countless photos and combines different images. “I like images that have multiple layers of meaning and that speak to me about what life and the world are like: illusory, multi-faceted, contradictory, ironic,” he said. “I vaguely envision an end result but I never know how to get there. It can actually take me several years to complete an image because I keep running into roadblocks.” An example of an obstacle that might impede his process includes the need to reshoot a subject or scene in a different season for the perfect weather and lighting.
Simen Johan, Untitled #193, 2018
Simen Johan, Untitled #200, 2019
“Whenever I start with a plan, I tend to fail,” he said, recalling a trip he took to a wildlife rescue in Maine to shoot an albino raccoon. “When I got there the raccoon was in a dark area of the park and it moved too much for me to get a sharp picture, but then I saw this raven…sitting with its beak open.” The artist photographed the raven and placed multiple images of the bird into a group, “together they looked like they were arguing,” he said. The image is part of his exhibit currently on view at Yossi Milo. “I’ve come to realize [the show] has a lot of influences from the current political climate. The correct term for a group of ravens is either a 'conspiracy of ravens' or a 'congress of ravens,'” Johan noted. Along with the bickering birds, Johan’s recent work showcases battling Barbary lions, piranhas swimming in dark waters, small salmon-colored iguanas crawling over a bemused larger lizard, skunks investigating a serene panda, and a grizzly bear roaring atop a trash heap.
Johan told the backstory of a ferocious-looking wolf. “This image started with a wolf’s face which I photographed at a wolf sanctuary in California. The caretaker was rubbing its belly when it made this face. I found it fascinating that this was the wolf’s happy face.” According to Johan, he did not have a suitable photo of a wolf’s body to graft on to the original snarl and was not able to complete the image until years later after he had photographed another wolf.
Simen Johan, Untitled #195, 2018
“For me a successful image is not one I can necessarily explain or talk about, but one that generates meaning and interpretation possibilities when I look at it. Ideally, the longer I look at an image, the more meaning it should generate and this is one reason I don’t like to title my work,” the artist explained.
Earlier works that Johan showed during his talk at Red Hook Labs included several photographs of children. Johan worked with children for several years before switching his focus to animals. A nod to his former filmmaking ambitions, Johan said, “The work is not really about children or animals. They’re just actors but they exist in this primal realm that I’m interested in where behavior is guided by intuition more than intention.” He added that his subjects serve as “witnesses to the worlds” he creates and that kids and animals can engage in these environments on a “more primal and fundamental level” than adults.
Simen Johan's Untitled #203 (2019) as seen in a slideshow during his talk at Red Hook Labs on December 7, 2019
Recurring themes in Johan’s work include fog, which he sees as the “breath of nature” as well as “strange, symbiotic relationships” and camouflage. “Camouflage is really nature’s way of confusing the things we see, like our perceptions are already distorted by personal desires, fears, experiences…and nature really conspires against the possibility that we can ever see clearly,” he said.
“I like to make something that’s not real feel logical—or distort logic—because so much in life is like that,” he continued. “Things make sense until you start questioning them and you realize that things are not really what they appear.”
Learn more about Johan at simenjohan.com and click to see my posts on his past exhibitions from 2011 and 2009.
Simen Johan: Conspiracy of Ravens
Yossi Milo Gallery, 245 10th Avenue (between 24th & 25th Streets), NYC
Exhibition on view through January 4, 2020
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