Gathering Paradise

Sandy Skoglund creates staged photographs of colorful, surrealistic tableaux. Working in a mode analogous to her contemporaries Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall, Skoglund constructs fictional settings and characters for the camera. She attended Smith College and pursued graduate studies at the University of Iowa, taking up photography in the 1970s. To create her images, Skoglund begins by designing and constructing detailed panoramic installations using nontraditional materials —ranging from Cheetos and bacon to hand-sculpted green cats —and often employs costumed models to populate her fantastical scenes. She then photographs these laboriously crafted sets, resulting in images that blur the line between nature and artifice. Though her images can appear digitally altered, all of their effects are produced in camera.