Elena Kristofor an Austrian photographer, born in Odessa, is taking part in group exhibition "The Use of Landscape" organised by Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The Exhibition will run from 26.03.2021 to 15.05.2021. Venue: Ausstellungsraum der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Eschenbachgasse 11, Ecke Getreidemarkt, 1010 Wien

The exhibition The Use of Landscape explores the concept of landscape with artists, scientists and architects. It presents works by ten students from the photography and video class of The National University of Arts Bucharest and the art and photography studio of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. One of this student is an odessan an amazing contemporary photographer Elena Kristofor.

Elena Kristofor was born in Odessa. Black sea landscape and the open Ukrainian steppe influenced Kristofor’s sense of space and light.

Around the turn of the millennium she migrated to Austria. She studied art and photography at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and architecture at the Vienna University of Technology. With her background in architecture and photography, she explores space. She uses photography, mirrors, glass plates and colored foils for the realisation of her site-specific installations. She stands out through her approach to creating abstract scenes of nature with geometric building structure.

I grew up in a steppe landscape by the sea. And the mountains stand for the opposites, strange and at the same time the restrictive.

Elena Kristofor

In recent years the themes of identity, perception and space have emerged as thematic nodes in her artistic work. Identity, specifically the location of the person in this world, is particularly in the foreground. Her work “In Search of the Outside” is perhaps a good example of this. Mountains in particular can be seen in this photo installation.

I still love the blue colour. It reminds me of the sea, the sky, the spaces of space, freedom, longing, weightlessness, dreams.

Elena Kristofor

Elena is now on a mission to share her passion and vision through her unique images. Her career has bridged the gap between nature, art photography, architecture and commercial projects. She is blurring the edges. Also one can see a portrait in everything that she shoot: be it a portrait of a landscape, a building, a nature or a person.

Elena Kristofor’s interest in spacial perception, mirroring, relation between the creator and spectator is reflected in group shows in institutions such as The Austrian Cultural Forum London, Landesgalerie Linz, Museum of Western and Oriental Art in Odessa and solo exhibitions among others at PARALLEL Vienna, the Sternstudio and Public Domain.

Her project in the forest, which was started about a year ago, doesn't look like it's going to end. It develops, unfolds, branches out, grows.

My engagement with the forest resulted in a collaboration with Laura Sperl, which now consists of several projects and includes not only photography but also performative elements. In general, I would subordinate the project in the forest to a larger topic: dealing with space, identity and their interaction.

Elena Kristofor

And these topics have been with Elena since her first artistic work. She continues to focus on reality shifts.

Working through the definitions, concepts and ideologies of nature and the utopias and technologies of modernity, and attempting to detach oneself from them to instead try to experience nature wordlessly within oneself. And to fail in the process, if necessary, due to the times, realities and magnitudes – perhaps it is the troubled state of postmodern humankind rather than our nature that resonates through all the works in the exhibition "The Use of Landscape" .