Tom Sandberg

Tom Sandberg is known for his seductive and tactile black & white photographs. The characteristic works in rich grey tones have since the 1970s been the Norwegian artist’s undoubted signature. Sandberg was a photographer and a human being in constant motion, drawn by the magic of the moment and always hunting for his next motif.

The counterpoints in Sandberg’s recurring subjects range widely. In this exhibition, Sandberg’s oeuvre is presented through a thematic selection of 3 image categories: clouds, smoke and shadows. The seemingly divergent subject matter shares a state of being in transit. Together they form an associative narrative – a translucence that travels through meteorological and urban scenes.

The presented works originate from Sandberg’s collection of photographic baryta prints created in his personal darkroom at his house at Ekely, Oslo. In Sandberg’s classical in-depth process in the darkroom, he projected light by means of an enlarger through the carefully selected film negative onto the photographic paper. During exposure, the artist meticulously calibrated the amount of light and time projected onto the image.

Sandberg’s photographic practice was linked to the tradition of straight photography – this artistic approach comes through in Sandberg’s clean and unmanipulated photographs where the captured moment stands without editing, revealing the artist’s eye for camera angling.

In his work, Sandberg explored the surface and depth ratio in a motif and built an often ambiguous, yet very recognisable world of images. Sandberg’s photographs reveal his fascination for a complex visual reality; he consistently managed to capture cloud formations in the very moment that they would take on a different and more personal presence. Both his figurative and non-figurative works bear the same high level of intensity. Even the seemingly abstract works attracts the eye and engage our own mental images – what you see is not necessarily what you get.

Kilde: Nils Stærk