The wild side of Simen Johan

Simen Johan contravenes almost every rule of normal wildlife photography. Far from being a documentary photographer who observes and records animals in their natural habitat, he creates each of his images meticulously in front of a computer screen. In his ongoing series Until the Kingdom Comes, he heaps layer upon layer of digital and traditional imagery to create a rich amalgamation of fantasy and reality. Animals photographed either in the wild, in captivity or even as taxidermy are then superimposed onto artificial landscapes that have fairytale or often post-apocalyptic connotations. Oddly – or perhaps intentionally - the results say more about human interference than they do about animals.

Holly Kyte