Sandy Skoglund - Art can be Accessible

 Being in art classes again has been a major change for me, especially when it comes to describing and interpreting work. One artist I recently discovered, has made it easy, fun, and meaningful. This artist is American photographer Sandy Skoglund. She does some very large-scale work, designing and creating interior room sets with extravagant colors, and surreal scenes. 

This is Revenge of the Goldfish, one of her most well-known pieces. I love her work because anyone can appreciate it, just out of the sheer impressiveness of what she is able to accomplish. She shoots these photos with an 8x10 camera an everything you see, the color, the contrast, the shadows, was done in-camera. Looking at this without assigning any deeper meaning to it is still an incredible visual experience and will certainly elicit some emotional response. 

She uses complementary colors that vibrate with each other, and the fluidity of the clay fish makes it feel like this room is actually underwater. 

While the visuals hold up on their own, I also enjoy the commentary she makes about American culture and commercialism with her work. For example, I heard her speak about this piece in a lecture posted to Youtube, and she mentioned how goldfish were created by humans, they were genetically modified. In this piece it could be interpreted in one way as the goldfish haunting the humans that created them, or the unnatural things that we do effecting us in ways we aren't even aware of.   

Here's an example of her working with a unique material to achieve a desired effect, cheese puffs! The monochrome orange and appearance of the texture make me feel like I have cheese dust all over my hands. This seems to be commenting on the fake, surface level interactions that people have at events like cocktail parties, using the most processed, artificial food that we've created. 

She also has a physical installment aspect to her work and puts these large scenes in places to exhibit them. Seeing this in person would be crazy, and I'm sure everyone would absolutely love it. 

Here's one last example of her work. This one I like because of how physically uncomfortable it makes me feel. Something about the use of color  as well as the uneven rhythm of the gum placed on the wall and everywhere makes it feel like there are bugs crawling up me skin. 

Sandy has so many amazing pieces that deserved to be seen. She truly is revolutionary and I am so impressed by what she does. She's made me feel like I can understand art and get something out of it while I have fun looking at it!