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About the artwork and artist
Artist: Linda Skoglund
Title: Arctic Dream
In the winter of 2015 I flew to Lapland where I was to stay for five weeks filming families on their quest to find Santa. As I'm from Sweden I know about snow, winter and being extremely cold and felt prepared for my adventure working outside in the Arctic Circle. I arrived to a surprisingly warmish Lapland sweating in my borrowed snowsuit. Too warm for this kind of latitude and time of year.
Lapland doesn’t offer much daylight. If there ever was a time to seize the day it’s here or you live in forever darkness. It is the extreme cold crisp days that present astonishing beauty where the sky is shimmering pinks and your nostril hair freezes with every inhalation. When beauty actually hurts.
Arctic Dream is the first of my Goddess paintings. She is the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. Ideas for this painting started on the most magical Christmas Eve, on a snow slope tobogganing under the magnificent Aurora.
What really saddens me is the amount of wastage consumed by everyone who goes there which could easily be avoided with simple changes to the operation. Visitors leave behind a mountain of rubbish. Leave No Trace and recycling could be part of the journey and such a simple thing as giving out reusable cups would make a huge difference. People do not know the impact they have on our environment and Lapland is changing way too quickly for us to be comfortable with it.
Arctic Dream, Linda Skoglund, 2015-16, oil on canvas
www.lindaskoglund.co.uk