Sandy Skoglund’s work is absolutely striking. She creates surrealist images by building elaborate sets, then furnishing them with carefully selected, colored furniture and other objects. Finally, after months of painstaking painting decoration and placement, she photographs the set, complete with actors. Her works are characterized by an overwhelming amount of one object and either bright, contrasting colors or a monochromatic color scheme.

Skoglund studied both art history and studio art at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, graduating in 1968. In 1967, she studied art history at the Sorbonne and École du Louvre in Paris, France. After graduating from Smith College, she went to graduate school at the University of Iowa in 1969, where she studied filmmaking, multimedia art, and printmaking. In 1971, she earned her Master of Arts and in 1972 a Master of Fine Arts in painting.

Skoglund began working as a conceptual artist there after, and tought herself photography to document her artistic endeavors, experimenting with themes of repetition, and color. One of her most-known works, entitled Radioactive Cats, features green-painted clay cats running amok in a gray kitchen. An older man sits in a chair with his back facing the camera while his elderly wife looks into a refrigerator that is the same color as the walls. Another image, Fox Games has a similar feel to Radioactive Cats and is also widely recognized. A third and final oft-recognized piece by her features numerous fish hovering above people in bed late at night and is called Revenge of the Goldfish. The piece was used as cover art for the Inspiral Carpets album of the same name.

Skoglund is currently teaching photography and art installation/multimedia at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Sit back, scroll and enjoy…

View more of Sandy’s work here.