Gordon Skalleberg

A new piece, Ensnared

October 27, 2020

A large, new piece is sitting in the studio, no room on the walls! Ensnared, oil on plywood and string, 47″ x 47″ or 120 x 120 cm.

New catalog printed

October 1, 2020

After several years it was time to print a new catalog. You can see it under the Art Catalogues link in red above. Pardon the mix of American and British spelling 🙂

I have recently been working on a project for a public art piece. The plan is to plasma cut a 20 mm (3/4″) steel piece that is going to be 2,54 m (100″) tall and 1,83 m (72″) wide. Ideally it should be placed in an open landscape somewhere in New Mexico. These photos are of a plywood mockup. I am calling the piece Reverence.

Reverence in the Piedra Lumber Land grant area near Abiquiu.

Reverence with Cerro Pedernal in the background.

New work

August 13, 2020

Finally an update… I forget to update, doesn’t mean I am not working… Here is an image of the latest piece. Me Then, oil on plywood, 47″ x 47″ / 120 x 120 cm.

The Virus…

June 30, 2020

A new painting, The Virus Could Be Anywhere, oil and spray paint on plywood, 78,5 x 49,5 cm (31″ x 19.5″).

Which life matters most?

June 16, 2020

Is a bigger animal worth more than a small? Is the life of a swan worth more than that of a sparrow? Nobody would pay a nickel for the lizard, while my horse is worth thousands of dollars. But morally, are they not worth the same?

Gunny and her little friend

June 9, 2020

For a really long time I have wanted to make a fairly large painting of a horse. Now I have my own horse that I can paint. This painting is 39 x 59 inches (100 x 150 cm) and it is, of course, oil on plywood. Have not decided what to call it and if I am done. I like the emptiness of the background…

With a glance at one of the masters…

May 17, 2020

Apparently Leonardo da Vinci worked on Mona Lisa for several years. I can’t imagine he worked uninterrupted, but kept coming back, looking at the painting with fresh eyes now and then. And supposedly he added layers of light and dark colors to the canvas before he started painting the image. I returned to an image I have worked on several times years ago. I built a birch plywood “canvas” in the same dimensions as Leonardo’s Mona Lisa: 77 x 53 cm (30.25″ x 21″). Leonardo painted a very dramatic landscape behind Mona Lisa and I made a different landscape… I will rest now and come back to this with fresh eyes later. I am thinking of building a fairly large frame, but make it black as Rembrandt preferred. Glossy black.

A lot of action in the studio

May 6, 2020

Even if I don’t update the blog so often, I am very busy in the studio. This is a painting I have wanted to do for several years. It is loosely based on a photo of my dad as a young handsome man. It is made of two pieces – theoretically it is a diptych, but they have been mounted in a black frame as one. The Artist’s Father, Oil on plywood, 65 x 41 cm.

Productivity in corona times

April 20, 2020

This lockdown can hardly be noticed, as I am spending most of my time in the studio. I started on a fairly ambitious piece and was not sure if I had taken on too much. But I enjoyed the work. I will call the painting Isolation and it is 120 x 80 cm (47″ x 31,5″), oil on birch plywood.