Tomas Colbengtson, born 1957, is Sámi. He grew up in the small village of Björkvattnet near Tärnaby, Sweden, just south of the Arctic Circle. In his artwork, he asks how the colonial heritage has changed Indigenous lives and landscapes of the Sámi and other Indigenous Peoples. Colbengtson struggles to revitalize his mother tongue, the South Sámi language. He works with visual art, using Sámi history and collective memory as the source of his art.
He is continuously experimenting with new forms of media and materials, from overlay glass and metal printing to etching and digital art forms. This way, he seeks to assemble a language to formulate loss and colonial oppression and to revive and revitalize Sámi identity.
Tomas Colbengtson is the 2024 recipient of the Queen Sonja Print Award. The award ceremony is held in Bodö, Norway, at the beginning of June. Other award recipients are Anselm Kiefer (Lifetime Achievement Award) and Maria Kayo Mpoyi (Inspirational Award).
