Kristoffer Axén, born 1984 in Stockholm/Sweden, studied fine art photography at the International Center of Photography in New York between 2008-2009, a city in which he lived and worked in until 2013. Earlier studies also includes motion picture and photography at the Nacka School of Media in Stockholm.
He was selected as a part of the New York based 2011 Tierney Fellowship and was also selected as a part of the 2010 reGeneration2: Tomorrow’s Photographers Today traveling exhibiton, which has been exhibitied in over a dozen countries worldwide. Recently he was selected as a group of twelve emerging artists for the France based Festival Circulations at the art center Cent Quatre in Paris.
He currently lives and works in Stockholm/Sweden.
Axén’s practice focuses mainly around one main theme which branches out into different series - that of the surrealism and solitude which follows an introspective and examined existence. His images (meant to stand on their own even among a series or group) is therefore highly subjective and suggestive, and is consequently often dreamlike in its feel, relating more to atmosphere and mood in an anonymous setting than to any specifics. In this way he uses photography more like painting and certain cinematic expressions and its relation to the inner world than as a way of documenting an objective reality. His work is constructed using digital tools and he often combines more than one image to construct his world, and he consequently relies on post-production tools to reach this stage.
He currently works on developing his world into even more subjective directions with the use of collage-like processes and additional texture - both in the post-production stage and in the printing process. The aim is still to extract the underlying, subjective, reality into images carrying an untold story, balancing the borderline between reality and fiction, with allusions to painters like Mamma Andersson and Michael Borremans, and filmmakers like Béla Tarr and David Lynch.
Axén’s editioned photographs (often largescale from 40in up to 60in on the longest side) have been exhibited internationlly in solo shows in New York (Munch Gallery) and Copenhagen (Galerie Pi), in a recent two-person show in Stockholm (Gallery Domeij) and in numerous group shows around the world, notably at Liljevalchs Spring Show in Stockholm, at Aperture Gallery in New York and at Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is is part of many private and public collections such as the ICP collection, Michaelis School of Fine Arts and MONA and he has been published in articles and selections from magazines such as the British Journal of Photography, The New York Times and Vogue Italia.
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