We spoke with Mark Diffey, founder of Scandinavian Art online gallery, about bringing Nordic artists to an international audience and the ideas shaping his curatorial vision.
Mark is a British designer based in Oslo. After buying a home there and looking for art for its walls, he began discovering the work of local artists and illustrators. Scandinavian Art grew from a conversation with an artist friend, who explained that much of this work was sold locally and had limited reach beyond Norway. Mark set out to help more people—including audiences back home in England—discover these artists and make their prints easier to buy internationally.
Scandinavian design is recognised worldwide, but contemporary Scandinavian art is often less familiar to international audiences. What led you to establish Scandinavian Art, and what gap did you believe the gallery could fill?
Scandinavian furniture is familiar to people around the world, but the artists producing art here aren’t always as well known. I wanted to help people discover the paintings, drawings and illustrations being made in the region, and make prints of that work easier to buy internationally. We began with a small Norwegian collection and have since added Hedvig Wallin from Sweden. We’re now looking for more artists across the Nordic region. I want the choice to grow because we’ve found work we believe in, while keeping it easy for someone to understand who made the picture they’re buying.
The term “Scandinavian art” can easily become a marketing label applied to anything minimalist or Nordic-looking. What, in your view, makes a work authentically Scandinavian, and what qualities do you look for when selecting artists and prints?
The familiar Nordic look is a narrow way to judge the art. The clean lines and restraint associated with Scandinavian furniture don’t set the rules for what an artist makes. A picture can be bright, busy, funny or strange. Nature and landscape often give you a better way into the work than the minimalist room you might imagine it hanging in. For us, the connection comes through the artist and the place they work, rather than a particular palette. What I look for is a recognisable point of view. Ingunn Dybendal‘s coloured-pencil work is full of colour and pattern and her motto is more is more is more. Sia Siamos paints the wine evening and the cabin breakfast. Simen Wahlqvist draws a whole joke in four lines. What they share is that they’re drawing their own lives in their own places, and the work carries the place with it. That’s what we look for before anything else. After that comes craft: work that holds up at 50 by 70 centimetres on a wall, not just at phone size.
Your current collection is deliberately compact and largely represents artists working in Norway. How do you discover new artists, and how involved are they in decisions concerning reproduction, presentation and the international sale of their work?
We started with a small group, mostly through people we met and introductions from other artists. Oslo’s illustration scene is connected; Helene Brox and Ingunn Dybendal are both part of Heiaklubben. Now we’re actively looking to expand beyond that starting circle and bring in more artists from across the Nordic region. The collection should give people a broader sense of the work being made here.
What does buying through a curated gallery offer that customers do not receive from large online poster retailers, particularly in terms of artistic provenance, print quality and support for the original artist?
For me, it comes down to provenance, discovery and support for the artist.
Provenance: you know who made it. Each print is a specific work by a named living artist, with their page, their biography and their other work a click away. The image was licensed from them, not lifted from an archive.
Discovery: we help you find artists you might never have come across. The collection is small enough to spend time with each person’s work, see how their pictures differ and find something you want to live with. That connection is what we’re trying to offer, rather than pages of near-identical posters to scroll through.
Support: a share of every sale goes to the artist, and because listing is free to them, a sale is another way for them to earn from their work. When you buy a Dybendal from us, Ingunn is paid for it.
How would you like Scandinavian Art to develop over the next few years? Could its future include collaborations with publishers and cultural platforms, limited-edition works, books, clothing or other objects that bring contemporary Nordic art beyond the conventional framed print?
I’d like to bring more artists into the gallery and reach more people outside the Nordic region. There’s room to build on that without losing the direct connection with each artist.
The artists
Helene Brox, Oslo. Illustrator, hand letterer and mural painter, and a founding member of the illustration agency Heiaklubben. Her book covers won silver and a diploma at Norway’s Årets vakreste bøker in 2016, and she invents wholly unreal grafted plants to sell as prints. helene-brox
Simen Wahlqvist, Oslo. Graphic designer and illustrator. He aims to capture moments, often before they happen, with as few lines as possible. If an illustration makes him laugh, it’s done. simen-wahlqvist
Ingunn Dybendal, Oslo. Illustrator, part of the Heiaklubben collective, with an illustration degree from Falmouth. Her work runs from a Google Doodle to a 360 square metre wall in Hamar, and her motto is more is more is more is more. ingunn-dybendal
Sia Siamos, Bergen. Half Greek, half Norwegian illustrator with a soft spot for still life, food and everyday moments. She came to illustration from graphic design, drawn to the quiet details that say the most, and works digital or analogue as the subject asks. sia-siamos
Hedvig Wallin, Gothenburg, Sweden. Illustrator and graphic designer whose work spans children’s books, murals and posters. She mixes drawing, painting and digital media into playful scenes with crooked perspectives and small details that reward another look. hedvig-wallin
Mikko Saarainen, Lahti, Finland. Illustrator and comic artist who gives expressive characters a strong sense of humour with spare lines and lively detail. His work ranges from editorial illustration to the Barbaari-Ari children’s books and his comic Loppu!. mikko-saarainen
For ATN readers
Readers of All Things Nordic get 15% off any print at Scandinavianart.co.uk with the code ATN15 at checkout. It applies to the print, framed or unframed, and every order still carries the fourteen-day change-of-mind promise.
