Sandy Skoglund

Whilst researching I came across artist Sandy Skoglund. In her practice she explores photography’s power to redefine reality by fabricating compelling fantasies and illusions. This is known as tableux or directional photography. It requires a knack for storytelling, a sense of style and a repertoire of convincing technical skills. From her earliest major installations and photographic works to the more recent, Raining Popcorn (2001), Skoglund proves her mastery of these skills. She is a canny pop-culture showman, producing ultimately disturbing artworks that attract viewer attention.

 Fresh Hybrid (below) is an installation and photograph that explores the shifting boundaries between life and lifelike by fabricating an artificial landscape. Replacing blades of grass with pipecleaners and bark with wool fibers, the materials strive to transform nature into a cornucopia of human pleasure with ubiquitous soft and fluffy surfaces. As if on a spring day, the sculpted hybrid trees blossom with impossible bounty and cheer in the form of chenille chicks, mass-produced lucky charms that give us a fragile and unsettling glimpse into an imaginary lost innocence.

  

 Fresh Hybrid (2008)

Goldfish (1981)

     

 Raining popcorn (2001)

 

Picnic on wine (2003)