About — Cooper Gorfer

Gallery representation:
LARSEN WARNER
JACKSON FINE ART

Cooper & Gorfer, the artist duo of Sarah Cooper (US/ SE, b. 1974) and Nina Gorfer (AT, b. 1979), are recognized for their boundary-pushing approach to portraiture. For nearly two decades, they have expanded the language of visual storytelling by merging photography with painting, textile work, collage, and video. Their practice, rooted in photography, has grown into a richly layered, tactile exploration of image-making. Their compositions, shaped by the complexity of identity, memory, and lived experience, reveal the physical, the constructed, and the emotionally resonant.

Each work is composed through an intricate process of assembling fragments – photographs, textures, materials, and narratives – into dense visual tapestries. Collage, once used metaphorically, has become central to their immersive multimedia practice, serving as both method and meaning. The works speak to personal and collective histories, drawing from an evolving archive of experiences gathered through years of research and collaboration.

In their recent work Hysteria, Cooper & Gorfer examine how we respond to emotional rupture – how we internalize conflict and build external facades in response. Through large-scale collages and video installations, they articulate the psychological architecture we construct to navigate instability, trauma, and transformation. Their figures are often constructed from shared features and composite forms, challenging the notion of a singular self.

The result is a body of work that is visually dense and psychologically charged – images that hold both intimacy and distance, beauty and disquiet. Cooper & Gorfer invite viewers into a space of layered interpretation, where the portrait becomes a site of inquiry into identity, resistance, and the multiplicity of the self.

Cooper & Gorfer’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as Fotografiska, the Hasselblad Center, and NOMA, and is included in significant collections like the National Gallery of Iceland. They have also produced award-winning monographs, including I Know Not These My Hands (2017), and films such as Between These Folded Walls, Utopia, honored at the Tempo Documentary Film Festival. Cooper & Gorfer are based in Sweden. They are Fuji ambassadors and are represented by Larsen Warner in Stockholm and Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta.

Cooper Gorfer are represented by Larsen Warner (Stockholm, Sweden) and Jackson Fine Art, (Atlanta, USA).

Art series

Hysteria
Hysteria (2022–)

Between These Folded Walls, Utopia
Utopia (2017–2020)

I Know Not These My Hands
Argentina (2011–2017)

Interruptions
Sápmi (2015–2016)

The Weather Diaries
Nordic Fashion Biennale (2012–2014)

My Quiet of Gold
Kyrgyzstan (2006–2011)

Latent Now
Qatar (2008–2011)

Delirium
(2020)

In a House of Snow
Iceland (2005–2008)

Books