is a photographer and artist who split’s his time between Oslo and Andøya. Landscapes feature prominently in Tollefsen’s photographs and projects. Observing and interpreting familiar landscapes, whether natural or cultural, is a recurring motif in his work.
“The large in the small, and the small in the large” may also serve as an approach to reading his projects. Tollefsen’s desire to challenge the cycloptic one-point perspective of the camera – a perspective that is at odds with how our two eyes actually perceive our surroundings – has motivated his work on photographic collages. These collages seek to challenge how we see a familiar landscape: what we see and what we perceive are two different things. In his photographic macroworks Tollefsen is mostly interested in perceptions of landscapes, weather, or lighting. By taking minute details from what is for him a familiar landscape and blowing them up to large-scale formats, he manages to create new rooms and interpretations. Tollefsen also uses a combination of new printing techniques and older crafts such as sandblasting and enamel painting in order to transfer these details and motifs to glass, thereby creating further layers and even further interpretations.
Tollefsen has contributed to a number of private and public decoration projects, in which his collages become part of an architectural context and expand the various rooms in different ways. In Oslo, Espen Tollefsen is affiliated with the Lavetthuset studio collective at Hovedøya. In Andøy, he is part of the artist-run gallery and studio Atelier Nøss. He is also a member of the Association of North Norwegian Visual Artists (NNBK) and the Association of Norwegian Visual Artists (NBK).
