Simen Johan, Untitled #131 (Llama), 2005
SIMEN JOHAN
Untitled #131 (Llama), 2005
From the series "Until the Kingdom Comes"
Digital C-print
Image: 60 x 60 inches; Framed: 63 1/4 x 63 1/4 inches
Courtesy of the artist
CURRENTLY ON VIEW: Stamp 1st Floor, Atrium Lounge
In his ongoing series “Until the Kingdom Comes,” to which this monumental portrait of a llama belongs, Simen Johan probes the boundaries between nature and artifice, reality and illusion, fantasy and nightmare. The exquisitely detailed image appears to capture the animal standing proudly in its own lush outdoor habitat. Johan has manipulated the photograph, however, using a variety of digital and sculptural devices to exaggerate the llama’s body and relocate it in an enhanced bucolic landscape. The result is a llama that bears an uncanny resemblance in its grooming to a coiffed poodle, its coat echoing the eerie whitish-grey mountain range in the distance. Adding a further sense of disorientation to the constructed scene are the other llamas visible in the background that appear to observe the central subject with some interest.
Stamp Gallery, 2016