Kristian Krokfors
Kristian Krokfors was born in Finland in 1952. From 1973-74 he studied Art at the University of Industrial Arts in Helsinki. In 1974 he moved to England to study at Leicester Polytechnic, where he received his BA in 1977. From 1977-78 he completed the Advanced Printmaking Course at Croydon College of Art before returning to Helsinki, where he currently lives and works.
In 1985 he was named Finland’s Young Artist of the Year, a prestigious national event organized by the City of Tampere and the Tampere Art Museum.
From 1988-90 he spent two years living and working in New York City. In 2001 he returned as artist-in-residence under the auspices of the Finnish Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Cultural Institue for Finland in the USA.
Krokfors has exhibited widely; venues include: Tampere Art Museum, Finland; Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland; Henie-Onstad Art Museum, Oslo, Norway; Galleri Futura, Stockholm, Sweden; Galleria Bronda, Helsinki, Finland; Dannenberg Gallery, New York City, USA; Lemonstreet Gallery, Dublin, Ireland; Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland; Galleri Norske Grafikere, Oslo, Norway; Gallery Alex, Washington DC, USA.; Galleria Uusitalo, Helsinki, Finland; Galería Manuel, Ojeda, Las Palmas, Spain; Osborne Samuel Gallery, London; New York Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory, USA; The London Original Print Fair at the Royal Academy of Arts.
His work is in a number of collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; The Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki; Helsinki City Art Museum; Tampere Art Museum; The State Collection; Parliament of Finland Collection; Chicago Art Institute, USA; World Bank, Washington DC, USA; Office of Public Works, Dublin, Ireland; University College Dublin, Ireland; The Art Museum of Cracow, Poland; The State Collection, Sweden; City of Nurnberg, Germany.
Kristian Krokfors is an eminently serious artist. His works are in no sensedidactic, but if you were to ask what they are “about”, the answer would spring unbidden, without any verbal prompting from him. Yes, they are, they must be, about the environment. They take as their evident, immediate subject the splendours and miseries of town planning and urbanism’s shaky relations with whatever belt of green it chooses to girdle itself with. They look at the dryness of the desert, the acrid smoke that belches from factories, the wind that shakes the barley – or would, if there were any barley left to shake. . . .1
1 Extract from exhibition catalogue ‘Kristian Krokfors: Paintings and Works on Paper’.
Foreword by John Russell Taylor, Pratt Contemporary, 2008
Paintings | Works on Paper
Prints