SOLDIER 2023
The series takes place at night, when children should be asleep, and they are photographed in situations and roles in which you (hopefully) cannot realistically meet children! Do you mind seeing in my staged photos a little child who wants to take drugs or another child as a homeless person? So I personally mind the premature adolescence of children. I resent a 2 years old kid playing with a cell phone. It bothers me that children at a young age start to live a social life on the Internet and that they start to have sex very early. I resent their early start to alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. It bothers me that some parents do aesthetic medicine to their children or force them to work from a young age on a dream that was once theirs (usually sports or show business…). Let the children have their childhood! Think, please! Whole series (password: 415): https://www.dereckhard.com/toosoon
Note: The text above was written by the Artist. No modification was made by COCA.
Matěj Hard
Czechia
Matěj Dereck Hard was born in 1985, in the capital city of Czech Republic – Prague, where he currently resides and creates. Master of Fine Arts from the Institute of Creative Photography in Silesian University of Opava, Czechia. His artworks are visually impressive staged photographs with a clear concept and unambiguous meaning – mainly still lifes, self-portraits and photographs telling a story. He is interested in art form of photography, in which he does not hinder the joke. He often criticizes himself and the contemporary social problems, the topics that matter to him. Dereck also reflects the contemporary environment of the modern city. He uses photographs using conventional photographic techniques (f.e. multiple exposure), but using digital camera. Of course, using post-production as well, but he doesn't create collages or photo montages.
He publishes authorial art books with a story (f.e. fairy tale ZUličníci or comics PHOTOMAN!) and has regular exhibitions at home and abroad