Cooper & Gorfer

Israa and Salam in Pattern, 2020From the series ‘Between These Folded Walls, Utopia’

Cooper & Gorfer Biography Cooper & Gorfer—the artist duo composed of Sarah Cooper (US/SE, b. 1974) and Nina Gorfer (AT, b. 1979)—have become internationally recognized for their boundary-expanding approach to contemporary portraiture. Over the past two decades, Cooper & Gorfer have developed a signature visual language that merges photography, collage, painting, textile, and video into immersive, multilayered narratives. Collage is central to their practice, serving as both method and meaning. Their hybrid portraits of women explore themes of identity, memory, displacement, and transformation, drawing viewers into richly constructed worlds where emotional truth takes precedence over literal representation. In landmark series such as I Know Not These My Hands and Between These Folded Walls, Utopia, Cooper & Gorfer use fragmentation and reassembly, both conceptual and material, to mirror the complexity of contemporary womanhood. Cooper & Gorfer reconstruct portraits from photographs, textures, and painted interventions, challenging traditional ideas of authorship and portraiture. Their images feel at once intimate, monumental, and deeply human. Sarah Cooper was born in the United States and later raised in Sweden, where she met Nina Gorfer, who was born in Austria. The two artists began collaborating in the early 2000s after studying at HDK–Valand in Gothenburg. Their shared interest in visual anthropology, cultural identity, and narrative structures became the foundation for the collaborative practice now known worldwide as Cooper & Gorfer. Today, the duo lives and works in Sweden, continuing to expand their multidisciplinary process and refine the tactile, collaged approach that defines Cooper & Gorfer photography. Across their career, Cooper & Gorfer have produced award-winning monographs, including I Know Not These My Hands (2017), My Quiet of Gold (2011), and The Weather Diaries (2014), created in collaboration with the Nordic Fashion Biennale. Their film Between These Folded Walls, Utopia—which extends the themes of their photographic series—was honored at the Tempo Documentary Film Festival for its innovative merging of portraiture and poetic documentary. Cooper & Gorfer are known for their interdisciplinary collaborations with designers, cultural institutions, and international arts organizations. They continue to push the boundaries of photographic storytelling. The work of Cooper & Gorfer is held in major public collections, including the National Gallery of Iceland, the Hasselblad Foundation, NOMA, and the Museum of Photography in Copenhagen, along with significant corporate and private collections around the world. They have exhibited widely at institutions such as Fotografiska (Stockholm, New York, and Tallinn), the Hasselblad Center, and numerous international photography festivals. Jackson Fine Art has exhibited Cooper & Gorfer since 2023 with their first exhibition with the gallery When We Are Giant and have since shown the duo in multiple art fairs across the United States. Their second solo exhibition with the gallery, Hysteria, will open in January of 2026.