Cooper & Gorfer
Cooper & Gorfer exhibited a selection of their work at the Nordic House in Reykjavík during Design March 2013. I was lucky enough to see it first hand. The duo consists of Sarah Cooper and Nina Gorfer. In 2006 they began their collaboration. With backgrounds in art, architecture, graphic design and photography Cooper & Gorfer’s work starts by collecting stories from the local people of the places they visit and photograph. These photographs are then arranged and collage together with amazing dream like textures and depths, with influences from 18th and 19th century painting to create a visual representation and strong narrative of these tales and stories.
“Like the portrait in Oscar Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Grey”, our images show more than just an objective view of the person portrayed. Instead, they also depict something we can not see – the past, the insubstantial and intangible, where the life and sentiment of the person photographed are woven together with our perception and experience of the moment. In the end, our pictures are the stories’ beautiful remains.” Cooper & Gorfer
Cooper and Gorfer are represented by Christian Larsen in Stockholm, Sweden.
surface & surface 