With a background in theatre and experimental video, Nico Krijno (b. 1981, South Africa) works at the blurry intersection of photography, collage, painting, sculpture and performance. Probing the limits of each, his work materialises in a stream of unique and colourful abstractions that not only act as autonomous pieces of art but, when seen as a collection, make Krijno’s obsession and ceaseless intrigue with the perception of photographs decidedly evident. Often working with discarded materials found in his immediate surroundings, he interprets and re-imagines them to find alternative structures for how meaning and subject matter are both constructed and perceived.

’How To Leave Your Body Behind’ is both playful, carefully structured and completely non-linear. Nico Krijno builds sculptures out of discarded materials, and then goes on to re-arrange them, over and over, photographing them during the process. These photographs are then re-processed and altered into new forms – using Photoshop, paint and/or collage –, creating new narratives and meanings. His explorations represent an experiment into the perceived truths of objects, the medium of photography and its history. Reminiscent of traditional still lifes, Nico’s photographs are loaded with humorous visual information, challenging the boundaries of the still image with his ever-changing mise-en-scène. Photographing these (what he calls) ephemeral structures is a private and physical performance, with the camera being the audience.

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