I can’t remember where it was that I first saw Karen Knorr’s work, but I was reminded of her at a Nerd Nite presentation on taxidermy back in November when the presenter brought up an image of Rachel Poliquin‘s book, The Breathless Zoo because one of Knorr’s pictures is on the cover (and again recently when I posted about Mikel Uribetxeberria).  I’m so surprised that her pictures haven’t made it onto this site yet!  Glad to add it now.

I feel like it is more apparent in some pictures than others, but the animals in Knorr’s photographs are added digitally, not taxidermy or live animals actually present in the spaces.  This project always makes me think of Francis Alÿs’ The Nightwatch, made by releasing a fox into London’s National Portrait Gallery and following its movement through the galleries using the museum’s CCTV system.

From a statement on the artist’s website: The usual aim of the fable is to teach a lesson by drawing attention to animal behaviour and its relationship to human actions and shortcomings. Animals in fables speak metaphorically of human folly, criticizing human nature. Yet it seems that the nature of Karen Knorr’s work has another aim. In Knorr’s “Fables”  the animals are not dressed up to resemble humans nor do they illustrate any explicit  moral. Liberated, they roam freely in human territory drawing [attention] to the unbridged gap between nature and culture. They encroach into the  domain of the museum and other cultural sanctuaries which resolutely forbids their entry.

The strangeness of this new series of Fables does not reside only in the disjunction between nature and culture. Karen Knorr playfully uses digital technology to mix the digital with the analogical. Analogue photography shot on large format cameras is combined with digital photographs of live and dead animals photographed in museum, zoos and nature reserves.The boundaries of the real are challenged by this hybrid. The spectator’s vision may become troubled by the incongruity of the animals photographed together.The intricate details of a shadow cast on a pillow, the shade of fine plumage, or the contour of a human thigh blur the boundaries between reality and illusion. Beyond the immediate seduction of the photographic images themselves, it is this ambiguity that gives them a particular force.

Visit artist's site: karenknorr.com

It’s possible I’m the last person on the internet to be posting the work of Kevin Russ, “the iPhone’s Ansel Adams,” but I’ve just got to represent his work here.  Russ lives in his car, selling prints and licenses to afford to travel full-time making pictures, yes, almost solely on his iPhone.  And of course that’s amazing, but don’t let that fool you into thinking this artist’s a gimmick.  Undeniably, his images are beautiful.

Amongst tons of features, there’s some interesting material out there explaining a little bit more about Russ’s lifestyle.  Read it here.

Visit artist's site: kevinruss.com

Source: Society6

Snow’s predicted and it’s pouring rain on this second day of May, so I thought I’d post these bright and spring-y showbird pictures by Luke Stephenson.  I’ve been thinking lately about how prevalent birds are in animal-centric photography (as you can probably see here).  I’m interested in this form of objectification of live animals.  The bird looks regal, so much so that it actually reads as an ornament.  I think these photographs are really beautiful and oddly evocative, even though they seem so straightforward.

From Belfast Exposed: Luke Stephenson is interested in documenting subcultures within British culture. In his series An Incomplete Dictionary of Showbirds, Stephenson has photographed birds commonly kept as domestic pets in the U.K. that are entered into ‘showbird’ competitions. The flattened spatial dimension and uniform background of Stephenson’s images remove any trace of either the birds’ natural environment or the living rooms and competitions where they are found in the U.K. In fact, the photographs eradicate any sense of the birds as real, living creatures. Instead they are presented as purely decorative, fantastical forms, to be viewed in the same way that one might look at depictions of birds of paradise on the pages of an illustrated book.

Visit artist's site: lukestephenson.com

Love this beautiful series of pictures.  Looking at them makes me think of the time I spent photographing the elk hunt in Kremmling, Colorado.  The content of this project, however, carries a very different message.

From the artist’s statement: Within the last few years, the number of Polish hunters going out for safari has been constantly growing. Not everybody can afford this expensive hobby and not everybody can be a professional hunter. Jewelers, petrol station owners, businessmen and even bakers head to Namibia, Tanzania or Kamchatka to search for trophies. The only key is money.

Every hunter’s dream is to shoot down the big five: lion, elephant, buffalo, rhinoceros and leopard. Such expensive wish costs up to few dozen thousands Euro … Once the big five are dead, hunters prepare the place on their walls to fill them with trophies. These private exhibits remind of a strange paradise for all kinds of animals. This is the only place where an antelope can exist next to a lion without having fear of being killed. Because the [antelope] has already been killed …

Nobody likes taxidermists. Ecologists consider them to be animal killers and say the profession is unethical. People prefer to think that they don’t exist at all. Only hunters understand them, and not only as their clients. They share the same passion for animals. A passion of chasing, killing and adoration.

Visit artist's site: rafalmilach.com

I am really excited today to share this body of work, Domestic Arrangements, by Kimberly Witham.  Kimberly’s name was given to me by a friend a couple of years ago and I posted some beautiful photographs from her Transcendence series.  My favorite part of turning my blogspot blog into Muybridge’s Horse was returning to visit the websites of artists I’d posted in the past and seeing what they were up to now.  I was very happy to see that Kimberly has been quite active, working on this series as well as Vanitas, which is in progress.

I’m a big fan of “straight-on” photographs.  I love the formal qualities of these pictures–the colors, the shapes, the patterns, the relationships between these things–and the exact choices that were made regarding them.  I also admire the inherent discomfort in seeing “home”-magazine-style imagery with a grotesque twist, and the artist’s critical note on the domestic and suburban lifestyle this type of magazine tries to sell.

From the artist’s statement: My work is strongly influenced by natural history dioramas, cabinets of curiosity, still life painting and other manifestations of man’s attempt to categorize, comprehend and ultimately control the natural world.  The photographs in this series pay homage to traditional still life painting while underscoring the inherent tension between humans and nature.  While Vanitas paintings refer to the futility of earthly pleasure, the photographs in this series question the consequences of our domestic comforts.  Unlike traditional still lifes, which often combined domestic objects with items from foreign locales, all of the items in my photographs are found close to home.  The objects in these photos include personal possessions, flowers and vegetables from my garden, and birds and animals found by the roadside.  I arrange these items into ephemeral constructions that are simultaneously whimsical and grotesque.  While these images are inspired conceptually by the Vanitas tradition, formally they are more akin to contemporary home and style magazines.  In the pages of these magazines, products are arranged in clinical perfection.  They promise relaxation, fulfillment and simplicity if we only buy one more thing.  In contrast, my arrangements highlight both the promise of suburban comfort and the aftermath of our continued consumption.

Visit artist's site: kimberlywitham.com