ABOUT
Artist photo by Sal Taylor Kydd
A first generation American, Anneli Skaar (born 1969) still holds a strong connection to her ancestral home in Scandinavia. Fluent in Norwegian, she moved to Norway from the San Francisco Bay Area, California, at 18, to attend the National Academy of Arts in Oslo where she received her BA. After a career of of working as an illustrator and designer, she debuted her work as a painter in 2014, when she had her first solo show ICEHARDSHIPBEAUTY.
Skaar has participated in residencies at Galleri Svalbard at 78 degrees north in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway in 2015; as well as a residency onboard an EIMSKIP container ship traveling from Portland, ME to Reykjavik, Iceland in 2016. She has gathered material for her work in Ilulissat, Greenland, in 2017, at the site of the largest, active glacier in the northern hemisphere and was awarded the Maine Media Workshop’s Book Artist in Residency in 2016 for which she produced the fine art book Bears and Ruins. Skaar has also produced numerous talks and articles related to her work and travels in arctic regions. In 2020, her fine press book Nansen's Pastport was published by Two Ponds Press.
In 2021 she is self-publishing the fine press book Monarch with a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, and will be creating another fine press book, Island Whale, for Two Ponds Press in 2022.
COLLECTIONS
Skaar's work is in the permanent collections
of the following museums and libraries
Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Boston Athenaeum
Bowdoin College
Columbia University
Fram Museum, Oslo, Norway
La Jolla Athenaeum
Scripps College
Stanford University
UC Santa Barbara
United Nations Library & Archives, Geneva, Switzerland
United States Library of Congress, Special Collections
University of Delaware
University of Miami
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Yale University
EDUCATION
1992, National Academy of Arts, Oslo, Norway, BA Graphic Design/Illustration
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022, Page Gallery, Camden, ME, "Dandelion Life"
2021, Trygve Lie Gallery, New York City, "Nansen's Pastport"
2017, Jessie Tobias Studio, Camden, ME, "Northern Nocturne"
2016, Saltwater Farm, Lincolnville, ME, "Aperitivi"
2015, Carver Hill Gallery, Rockland, ME, "Civil Twilight"
2014, Heather Hearst LLC, Camden, ME, "ICEHARDSHIPBEAUTY"
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, "Boundless"
2021, Page Gallery, "Overflow", July 15–August 14
2020, Page Gallery, "Storytelling", September 17–October 11
2019, Page Gallery, "Holiday Show"
2019, Page Gallery, "Form Follows Function"
2019, Page Gallery, "Tideline"
2018, Center for Maine Contemporary Art
Biennial, November 2018 - February 2019
2018, North Haven Gallery, "Winter Haven"
2016, Raugland Gård, Stavern Norway, "The Nerdrum Clan III"
2016 Maine Media Workshops, Rockport, ME,
"Exquisite Corpse Fundraiser Exhibition"
2015, High Mountain Hall, Camden, ME, "8th Annual Holiday Show"
2015, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME
Art to Collect Now | 38th Annual Art Auction and Exhibition
2015, Maine Media Workshops, Rockport, ME,
"Exquisite Corpse Fundraiser Exhibition"
2014, Carver Hill Gallery, Rockland, ME, "Cache Bar"
2014, Carver Hill Gallery, Rockland, ME, "Us and Them"
2014, St. Augustine Art Association, St. Augustine, FL,
"5th Annual Nature and Wildlife Exhibition"
2014, Las Lagunas Gallery, Las Lagunas, CA, "Art of Dance"
RESIDENCIES
2019, American Academy of Rome, Italy, Visiting Artist
2016, Maine Media Workshops, Book Artist in Residence
2016, EIMSKIP, Onboard Residency, Portland, Maine to Reykjavik, Iceland
2015, Galleri Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Norway
1995, The British School, Rome, Italy, Visiting Artist
BOOKS
Nansen's Pastport, fine press book , Two Ponds Press
2019, The Other, self-published book of short stories
2016, Bears and Ruins, hand-made artist book, Artist in Residence,
Maine Media Workshops + College
2015, Sh*ttiest Coffee at the Top of the World, self-published travelogue