Both beautiful and disturbing at once, Simon Roberts’ After London is a series of portraits of just recognisable locations in London showing the city in a new and unusual light. The scenes are familiar but distant, as if shown after some catastrophic event. The tranquil, painterly palette lends to the emotional dissonance: this is the London we all know but somehow it is alien too.
In this series of images, dissolving portraits of a half-familiar London invite us to imagine a future transmuted by climate crisis. The city is de-peopled and eerie, its landmarks re-imagined as monuments to a displaced past. The photographs speak of loss, temporality and human fragility.
Simon Roberts is a British photographer renowned for his large-format, tableaux-style images that explore the relationship between people and landscape, focusing on themes of identity and belonging. Roberts has exhibited internationally, with his photographs held in major collections such as the George Eastman Museum and the V&A.
