Simon Cederquist

Mythological Master - Swedish artist and photographer Simon Cederquist combines reality with the surreal and mythological. And thereby creating a  photographic world where nothing is impossible.

Stockholm born Cederquist started out doing editorial work for newspapers and magazines. However, he soon realized that editorial and documentary photography didn´t suit him well - not at least because the heavily photoshopped collages he came back with were far from the straight-up portraits the editors and art directors ordered. In 2009 Simon Cederquist found a new artistical language while working on the ambitious photobook “Sleeping Beauty”, taking nine months to finalize. Cederquist finds his inspiration among renaissance painters like Rembrandt and Albrecht Dürer, as wall ass surrealist master Salvador Dali, rather than looking at contemporary photography.

For five years, Cederquist lived and worked in Berlin, letting himself get inspired by the city’s Street art movement. Cederquist works with construction and deconstruction, as he prints his images in smaller pieces and then assembles them as a collage on a canvas.Thereafter, he uses acrylic paint to enhance contrast and details before finally adding a layer of varnish. That way, he creates cracks and texture to the image. An artwork usually consists of five up to 200 photographs combined in Photoshop. However, Cederquist never uses stock photos or 3d-renderings. Every picture is created by Simon and his camera. Cederquist today ranks as one of Sweden’s most in-demand commercial artists.

Based in: Stockholm
Books: Sleeping Beauty (2019)
Selected exhibitions: “Hearts and Arrows” with Montluc Diamonds (2018/2019)
Selected Commercial clients: Mackmyra Whisky, Hästen Beds, Absolut Vodka