Photographer Oliver Richon creates allegorical depictions of animals using the conventions of portraiture, chiaroscuro lighting, and an understanding of perspective that rivals master still life painters such as Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. Steeped in consciousness of art history, his work reveals the layers, subtleties, and hidden meanings that lurk underneath the so-called factual medium of photography. “Richon plays with our allegorical expectations, equipping his images with artefacts that, at first, seem laden with art-historical symbolism, but simultaneously confuse conventional readings,” wrote critic Sarah James in Frieze. For instance, in Monkey with Fruit (2008), a pensive monkey examines fruit against the austere background of the photographer’s studio. Noting the cheeky and surrealistic qualities in Richon’s otherwise highly conceptual photography, James declared it “like the love child of Victor Burgin and Man Ray.”