With Royal Ascot in full stride, this week The Wick is taking a closer look at Dancing Fearless, Jorg Karg’s arresting 2020 photographic collage of a black horse rearing within a sparse studio scene. A pale curtain hangs behind it, translucent steps rise from a sweep of crumpled fabric and a single dark sphere rests in the foreground. The horse is in motion, yet the composition suspends it in a strange pause, giving the image its thick sense of tension. The grandeur of equestrian portraiture is drawn into Karg’s carefully imagined world, where the improvised set and surreal arrangement lend the scene an uncanny and dreamlike quality.

Karg has worked with digital collage for more than a decade, building his images from photographs he takes himself and material created in collaboration with photographers around the world. His process involves rearranging and abstracting these images, a practice shaped by the years he previously spent painting and drawing. Dancing Fearless belongs to a body of work created after more than a year of studio experimentation, during which he took thousands of photographs and worked with clay, wire, wood and found objects. During a week devoted to racing and polished appearances, Dancing Fearless captures the horse at the height of its power, poised between movement and stillness and completely in command of the frame.