"[3] The impact of Skoglund's juxtaposition of commercial aspects, dramatization, and conceptual art elements, is described by curator Marvin Heiferman, who explains that "The work simmers down and reminds viewers of their smallness in a big, overdetermined world where consumer culture, nature, science, and their interior gyroscopes regularly spin out of control.
She also become interested in advertising and high technology—trying to re-frame mass media aesthetics for a noncommercial purpose via combining the technical focus found in the commercial world and bringing that into the fine art studio.
[9] In an interview with curator Luca Panaro, she imparts that, "Mixing of the natural and the artificial is what I do everyday of my life, and I hope that I am not alone in this process.
"[10][7] Skoglund often creates compositions by building elaborate sets or tableaux, and embellishing them with carefully selected colored furniture and other objects, as well as live models.
[11] Skoglund's works are quirky and idiosyncratic, and as former photography critic for The New York Times Andy Grundberg describes, they "evoke adult fears in a playful, childlike context".
"[13] Skoglund's 1992 installation, The Cocktail Party and Raining Popcorn (2001) are indicative of her sentiments about using food as raw artistic material.
Skoglund researched the history of popcorn in the Americas from its Indigenous and colonial use in celebrations and rituals, to its more recent association as a snack of leisure and entertainment.
Photographing a single saltine cracker and then reproducing that image 77 times, resulted in a composition that became abstracted and obscured in accordance with the subtle mechanical shifts derived from the Xeroxing process.
An older man sits in a chair with his back facing the camera while his elderly wife looks into a refrigerator that is the same color as the walls.
In a 2013 online forum by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, Terry Barrett and Sydney Walker identified two viable interpretations of Radioactive Cats.
The composition envisions a restaurant scene where the tables, chairs, windows, chandelier, and food items are painted in grayscale.
[21] Revenge of the Goldfish utilizes a variety of elements of art and design, including the juxtaposition of complementary colors, scale, and balance.
Skoglund began by taking photographs of candid street and domestic scenes in black and white, later adding color to them in the darkroom.
"[23] In 2002, Skoglund designed the men's bathroom for the Smith College Museum of Art, as an installation called Liquid Origins, Fluid Dreams.
Fresh Hybrid (2008) is an artificial landscape, where organic materials like blades of grass and bark are replaced by pipe cleaners and wool fibers.
[25] The making of Winter began through the familiar process of installation and photography, but Skoglund eventually decided to create a work that was fully rendered digitally.
Skoglund recreated the work as a site-specific installation that was prominently on view for anyone walking along the High Line, which is adjacent to Ryan Lee Gallery's window display.
[28][21] Photographs of the artwork have been on view and collected by several institutions including, Smith College Museum of Art,[29] which also owns the original installation.
The title of the exhibition was Sandy Skoglund: Visioni Ibride, which translates to Hybrid Visions, a symbolic reference to her fusion of diverse media and imagery.