2023
curated by Lisa Ortner-Kreil
Gmunden, Austria
Elena Kristofor has been exploring the subject of the forest in her artistic work for several years. She has set up her studio there, in a natural environment that is so different from the one in which she grew up: between the sea and the steppe landscape. The forest, which is a spatial encounter for the artist, which she experiences for the first time when she arrives in Austria, fascinates Elena Kristofor because it combines an “outside” and an “inside”: for gmunden.photo 2023, the artist has created an in-situ installation in which a self-portrait, in which she stages herself with a branch, is brought together with natural materials such as branches, bark and leaves, some of which she also works on artistically with paint. With her installation, the artist wants to make the experience of being trapped and the sense of otherness that the forest represents tangible. “For me, everything I do is an attempt to establish a relationship with the forest, including the portraits and the integration and interaction of and with the forest objects,” says Elena Kristofor.
Lisa Ortner-Kreil
