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JOSEPH HÄXAN

b. 1995, Adelaide, South Australia.

Lives and works in Adelaide, South Australia.

Joseph Häxan is a digital composite photographer, retoucher and filmmaker, using his own body as his model. In 2018, Häxan graduated the Bachelor of Visual Arts program at the University of South Australia. While completing an Honours study in Photography the following year, Häxan's The Black Mass series was acquired by 20th Century Fox for their popular television show American Horror Story.

"Emerging from the shadows is Joseph Häxan, a photographer and filmmaker out of Australia who is blurring the lines between our deepest fears and our wildest fantasies.

 

Using his own body as a model, Häxan strips down to create dark and fantastical productions, pushing the limits of the human body. His long-time fascination with the occult and devil worship is apparent throughout all that he creates, the unsettling complexities of our universe looming over us with each visual. In addition to the occult, Häxan finds inspiration in the dark and obscure underbelly of film. A movie-maker at heart, each photo series serves as a cinematic still, drenched in storytelling and strong narratives. His presentation of pitch black darkness contrasted with a confrontational white flash, lifts the curtain, unveiling the power of imagination and the exploration of life’s unanswered questions. 

 

Häxan himself is an extraterrestrial force, a nocturnal messenger of the supernatural who challenges us to take a deeper look inside and at our surroundings, everything is not as it seems. Through the cosmic language of the human body, Häxan’s image manipulation transports us into a world of eerie comfort, shoving us into his dark abyss and throwing away the key. His work confronts us with the most raw aspects of our humanity, one that is deeply rooted in nature’s virtue, drawing us in to see the beauty in less obvious places." 

'Twisted Eroticism & The Occult'

GATA Magazine, 2023

Magic Earth

MAGIC EARTH / Ongoing

REALITY / 2023

REALITY

UNIVERSE / 2021-22

UNIVERSE

THE MONONOKÉ / 2022

THE RITE OF SPRING / 2019

My works explore the permeable boundary between nature and the occult, placing human beings within a vast and powerful universe of hyperreal natural phenomena. In this universe, the male figure is removed from his modern context, presented at the same level of interpretation as his surrounds. Rites and rituals of mankind, here, become processes of the natural world. They are reduced by nature, reminding us that all of our operations, both sacred and obscene, are governed by the laws of science and the universe. The works act as a lens, through which religion can be viewed as a physiological process. One that swirls in the minds of these figures as a barrier to comprehending the infinite complexity of the world they occupy.

THE RITE OF SPRING

BODY HORROR / 2018 - 19

BODY HORROR
NATIVITY

NATIVITY2017

THE BLACK MASS2016

THE BLACK MASS COLLECTION

GARDEN

GARDEN

SELECTED FILM WORKS

FILM WORKS
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