Tomas Colbengtson

Title: Vero Værie (Sacred Mountain)
Technique: Mixed media on aluminum + glass with overglaze printing
Dimensions: 45 x 97 cm
Year: 2026
Other: The work is included in the exhibition Our Stories, which runs at the gallery until December 5, 2026. If purchased, the work can be collected / shipped only after the exhibition ends. 

The work depicts the borderland between the physical and spiritual worlds in Sámi belief. In front of the mountain, people gather to sacrifice their most precious possessions. The glass drum acts as a membrane between the worlds, enabling communication between humans and the spiritual realm. The motif depicts a real mountain in the Ran Sámi community, whose territory spans the Norwegian-Swedish border and to which the artist’s family has historically also belonged. As a reference, he used images of an old Sámi drum from Ran, once used at this very mountain. The drum was forcibly confiscated in the early 18th century by the priest Thomas von Westen.

Tomas Colbengtson (b. 1957, Björkvattnet, Tärnaby) works with memory, history, and issues of repatriation and decolonization. His art draws on his own experiences and traditional Sámi crafts, in which knowledge and stories have been passed down through generations. The crafts carry experiences of a life close to nature and an understanding of human dependence on and interaction with the surrounding environment.