Larsen Warner is proud to present the exhibition Sirens by Cooper Gorfer, the artist’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery and follows their recent acclaimed exhibition of the same name at Fotografiska Shanghai. Sirens marks an important period for Cooper Gorfer, reflecting their continuing development and increasing focus on the creation of unique collaged works. Presented across rooms two and three within the gallery, Sirens features a new series of extraordinarily complex layered collages. Each work is a carefully balanced amalgamation of techniques and materials reflecting the artists exploration of illusion, memory, and dislocation as well as illustrating the malleability of identity through the female experience.

Women have found expressions for power and rage over the centuries. Sirens, under definition, can mean a piece of equipment that makes a very loud warning sound, an enchanting or menacing monster in Greek mythology, but also a captivating, attractive but dangerous temptress. Depending on how you choose to interpret Sirens, it can be danger, or it can be warning you from danger. A deceptive idiosyncrasy.

Within the exhibition the artists create a fictitious tribe of women in different states of transformation. Birthed from a library of female bodies and rituals, the artists reconstruct a mythological dynasty inspired by the transformative powers of immortal goddesses, their use of power, magic, and vengeance. Alluring, enchanting and perhaps dangerous, the artists construct women wielding supernatural power. They explode from the frames that contain them, towering above the viewer. Figures of monumental proportion, with legs and arms that can crush with a single swoop.

The line between what is real and what is imagined is mirrored in Cooper Gorfer’s technique. The artists renowned use of photography is now blended with painting, hand cutting and stitching, with each section of work layered upon another; exploring relationships between texture, colour, light and form in much the same way as a sculptor will manipulate material to create a physical experience for the viewer. The initial idea for constructing the figures came from using the surrealist game Cadavre Exquis, where the artists created a shared body by dividing it into two concealed halves. Resulting in unexpected associations and proportions. Bodies that are never entirely their own, with shared limbs that belong to several women simultaneously.

Pictured (fropm left)

Parts of Noe, 2024

Twins with Dogs and Birds , 2024

Mandana One Bird , 2024

The Yellow Hand, 2024

The Giant Battle, 2024

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All works: Unique collage. Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, sublimation print on velvet, oil and vinyl paint on canvas, cotton & polyester thread.

Cooper Gorfer’s imagery stems from personal accounts of vulnerability, playing with our own inner demons and desires, and how they manifest in the body. Breaking out of preconceived notions of femininity, the work is a bold declaration of the right of the female body to occupy space, both literally and figuratively. Loving mystical and avenging, the sirens of Cooper Gorfer are a testimony to vulnerability and a force to be reckoned with.

Cooper Gorfer comprises the artists Sarah Cooper (US, 1974) and Nina Gorfer (AT, 1979) who began their collaboration in 2006. Selected recent exhibitions include Sirens, Fotografiska Shanghai (2024); When We Are Giant, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, USA (2023); When We Are Giant, Larsen Warner, Sweden (2022); A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes, Fresno Art Museum, USA (2022); Interruptions, Roros Museum, Norway (2021); The Weather Diaries, Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Estonia (2020); Interruptions and The Weather Diaries, Rosphoto, St Petersburg, Russia (2018); Interruptions, Árran, Lulesamisk Senter, Drag, Norway (2018); A Queen Within, NOMA New Orleans Museum of Art, USA (2018); I Know Not These My Hands/Interruptions, Strandverket Konsthall, Marstrand, Sweden (2018); The Weather Diaries, American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis, USA (2017); I Know Not These My Hands, Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden (2017); The Weather Diaries, Nordic Heritage Museum, Seattle, USA, Danish Cultural Center, Beijing, China (2016); The Weather Diaries, National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, Denmark (2014). In 2018, Cooper Gorfer were the winners of the prestigious German Photo Book award for their monograph I Know Not These My Hands.