Kristoffer Axén, born 1984 in Stockholm/Sweden, studied fine art at the International Center of Photography in New York between 2008-2009, a city in which he lived and worked in until 2013. 

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 exhibition, which has been exhibited in over a dozen countries worldwide, and 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 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 his latest series of photographs Axén lets the textural aspect of imagery take a larger part of the narrative. Layers of abstract elements interact with the photographs which are reduced of their main descriptive elements. Emerging are then windows of meditation - silent vistas to a world behind the image, where a cold and ominous tone collaborates with the restful and contemplative.

In terms of his paintings Axén here takes a turn towards the disintegration of the real, and the balance between the represented and the abstract. Using mineral spirits, palette knives and sharp objects he disrupts the surface of the drying oil paints and allows texture and jagged patterns to share the narrative with his obscured, symbolic and introverted subject matters. 

Axén’s work have been exhibited internationally in solo shows in New York (Munch Gallery), Copenhagen (Galerie Pi), and 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 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.