Elin is a Swedish-British artist working across sculpture, painting, photography, and text. Her practice begins with what is close at hand: logs, swans, fragments of landscape, and self-portraits emerge through an improvised and playful visual language. Through these materials and images, she reflects on both the beauty and ache of life, drawing attention to things that are often fragile, fleeting, or difficult to hold in place.
Guided by curiosity and a quiet sense of joy, Elin works openly and intuitively. Her process is led by necessity, shaped through the sensitivity of her hands as she moves between materials, gestures, and methods. She often describes her works as “bodged”, improvised acts of making, repair, and adjustment that embrace imperfection while speaking to fragility, persistence, and forms of protest.
Across her practice runs a sense of belated protest: an understanding of artworks as acts of choice, and of making as a way of responding to what cannot easily be resolved. For Elin, painting offers both pause and resistance, a space in which to imagine how things might be otherwise. What grows out of loss? What comes to life through a mulching log?
As she works, Elin gives form to the way she experiences the world: how wonderful things can be, and how harrowing; how messy, painful, curious, and ecstatic life can feel, sometimes all at once, sometimes in succession — delight giving way to fear, companionship to solitude. Beneath the work lies a deep desire for this delicate life, in all its contradiction, to make some kind of sense.
In 2016, Elin founded Jakob Kroon Gallery, a nomadic artist-run gallery working across Sweden, the UK, and online. She has long supported Photo Fringe and served on its board from 2019 to 2023. She has lectured at University of Brighton, University of the Arts London, and Art Academy London.
In 2024, Elin completed a practice-based PhD in fine art at University of the Arts London. Following a residency in 2022, she became an Arts Associate of British School at Athens, and in 2019 she was in residence at British School at Rome. Her writing has appeared in Handbook of Research on the Relationship Between Autobiographical Memory and Photography (2023) and Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance (2022). Recent exhibitions include Konsthall C, Norrtälje Konsthall, Demoni Danzanti, and Gallery Dodo.
Follow Elin's work @elinkarlsson__EXHIBITIONS
2026, a grin without a, Konsthall C, Stockholm, Sweden
2026 Recent Paintings, Detroit Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
2025 Inner Light, Konsthall C, Stockholm, Sweden
2024 Salong24, Norrtälje konsthall, Norrtälje, Sweden
2023 Unfolding Narratives 3, PhD work in Progress, LCC, London, UK
2022 A Cloth Over a Birdcage, Gallery Dodo, Brighton, UK
2022 Salon in Sabina, Sabina, Italy
2022 Unfolding Narratives 2, PhD work in Progress, LCC, London, UK
2021 20 Years of Artists at the BSA, 12 Star Gallery, London, UK
2020 Collemacchia Beacon, The Museum of Loss and Renewal, Italy
2020 Unfolding Narratives, PhD work in Progress, LCC, London, UK
2019 Picturing the Invisible, Triangle Space, Chelsea College of Art, London, UK
2019 Portico, British School at Rome, Rome, Italy
2018 Made For Life, Regency Town House, Hove, UK
2017 The Best Mess, HUTT Collective, Nottingham, UK
2016 Unwriting, Colonnade House, Worthing, UK
2016 Life is On, Jakob Kroon Galleri, Stockholm, Sweden - Duo show with J. Fitzpatrick
2015 Whatever You Say I am, That’s What I am, Unit 8, Brighton, UK
2014 72Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (curated by Photobookshow)
2014 Familiar Constructs, Gallery 40, Brighton, UK - Solo show (curated by Sunil Shah)
2014 Unit 8, Platform Gallery, Brighton, UK
2013 /World, Grand Parade, Brighton, UK
2013 Festival Diep, Dieppe, France (curated by Alice Schÿler Mallet)
2012 Fine Art Media, The Rag Factory, London, UK
2012 In Search of Place, George Rodger Galley, Maidstone, UK
2012 Along the Lines of..., Lucy Bell Gallery, St Leonards on Sea, UK
RESIDENCIES
2021 British School at Athens, Athens, Greece
2020 Taking Time - Museum of Loss and Renewal, Collemachia, Italy
2019 British School at Rome, MEAD Residency, Rome, Italy
2018 Writing Retreat, St- Malo, France
2014 Forest Residency, Stour Valley Arts, Kings Wood, UK
PRESENTATIONS AND TALKS
2024 'Trauma-informed Pedagogies in Art', Why Remember? 2024, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2022 ‘A Cloth Over a Birdcage’, Photo Fringe, Brighton, UK
2022 ‘Concluding Lecture’, British School at Athens, Online
2021 ‘The Art of the Bodge, British School at Athens, Online
2019 ‘The Jam in Bellfield’ (reading), Chelsea College of Art, London, UK
2015 Miniclick Panel Discussion, Brighton, UK
2014 ‘Familiar Constructs’ (round table discussion), Gallery 40, Brighton, UK
2014 ‘Familiar Contructs’, Phoenix Centre, Brighton, UK (organiser)
2013 Miniclick, Pecha Kucha, Brighton, UK
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS (with links)
PUBLISHED WRITING AND INTERVIEWS
Karlsson, E. (2025) A Mother(hood)fucking Arsenal of Poetry, Demeter Press [coming]
Karlsson, E. (2024) Konsten att läka. Utställningskritik. (For English translation: www. elin-karlsson.co.uk/the-art-of-healing)
Karlsson, E. and Palma, A. (2022) A Cloth over a Birdcage. Bookend.
Karlsson, E. (2021) Recipes Under Confinement. Ma Bibliotheque.
Murphy, C. (2021) Unfolding Narratives 2: Elin Karlsson
Karlson, E. (2020) Practice Sharing, Language-Based Artistic Research Group
Karlsson, E. (2018) The Jam in Bellfield - Self-published, edition of 20
Karlsson, E. (2014) Elina Brotherus: Even if it is me, it can also be you, Introdex Magazine
EDUCATION
2016-2024 PhD (practise-based), University of the Arts London, UK
The Art of the Bodge: Understanding bodging as a methodology when
working with themes of sexual violence in the medium of sculpture and writing.
2012-2013 MA Photography, University of Brighton, UK
2009-2012 BA Photography and Media Arts, University of the Creative Arts, Maidstone, UK