Simon Ward | Bon Int. 11

Curated Art pages featured in Bon International No. 11 Wild / Spring 2007

Simon Ward creates exquisitely dark photographs of inanimate objects in a style that is reminiscent of eighteenth century still life painting. Using a flat bed scanner rather than a camera, to echo photogram; the early form of photography, he takes either found dead animals; the Gecco came from Sicily or pets; the Hamster was a friend’s in Brighton and scans them, for up to anything over 7 hours. “By working at night my room becomes a dark room, scanning times exceeding sometimes 7 hours depending on the size - I would let them run and go to sleep, waking up to tidy up the scanner and remove the animal.”

A lot of time is also spent creating the perfect pose, as you can imagine this can be hard when rigor mortis has set in, so Ward prefers to get the animals early while they are still pliable and before they are too smelly! The overall lengthy process gives the ‘Still Life’ series its painterly quality, and air of contemplation, Ward says, “What is beautiful about the images is that you kind of question whether they are alive or dead”. 

Image: Male Pheasant, 2003  © Simon Ward