Tom Sandberg

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.
 

Tom Sandberg (1953-2014) was educated at Trent Polytechnic in England where the American photographers and artists Thomas Joshua Cooper and Minor White were among his teachers. For more than 30 years Sandberg photographed, and simultaneously lay the foundation for the professional photo environment that Norway is known for today. Tom Sandberg has exhibited at Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Lillehammer Kunstmuseum, and Fondazione Fotografia Modena in Italy and his international recognition had its peak with the solo exhibition at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (MoMA) in New York in 2007. 

Nils Stærk would like to thank the board of the newly founded Tom Sandberg Foundation and the estate advisory board, who together with Tom Sandberg's family, have made this exhibition possible.