Collection: Maria Natalie Skjeset

Maria Natalie Skjeset (born 1990) is a Norwegian artist who mainly works with photo-based digital graphics (dga). She has a bachelor's degree in Virtual Art and Design from Hedmark University College (2013) and has studied photography, graphics, graphic design, art history and history of ideas. Skjeset is a member of Norske Bildkunstnere (NBK), Grafill and Forbundet Frie Fotografer (FFF).

This is what the artist says about the technique:

"I mainly work with digital graphics (DGA or digital graphic work), a graphics-related expression produced through fully digital processes. To create an image, I process my own photographs directly in a digital photo editing program. A single image can consist of dozens of photographs that I work through digitally so that the photographic starting point slips into a painterly expression.

In digital graphics, it is the original data file that is the origin of the work, and which can be considered the printing plate. The Photoshop file is my "pressing plate" where I develop the motif. The digital process enables other artistic qualities and expressions than when using analogue tools. My pictures can easily be described as poetic mood pictures.

The motifs spring from the imagination, but based on observation of reality. The painterly expression is prominent in all my works. This digitally produced "patina" is inspired by how paintings show signs of change over time through cracking and changes in the surface.

I am inspired by philosophy, mythology and beauty, and my images consist of elements from nature, such as flowers and human figures in a dreamy landscape. I seek the connection between the nature around us and man's inner landscape. The pictures are an invitation to reflection and a walk into the "forest of symbols". Man is by nature a searching being, and as a human being I feel an urge to contemplate life's small and large mysteries."