Synnøve Anker Aurdal grew up in Lillehammer, a small town in southern Norway known for its weaving traditions. At the age of 15, she attended Karen and Ragnhild Prestgard’s school in Lillehammer, where she learned traditional weaving. Between 1932 and 1934 she studied drawing and flat weaving at Statens Kvinnelige Industriskole [the State Women’s Industrial School] in Oslo.
From an early stage, S. A. Aurdal combined ancient craft traditions with modern elements such as abstraction, often in a simplified and geometric design. Her monumental piece called Solen [The Sun, 1968] is an example of such geometric non-figurative work. It consists of two oval shapes in a colour combination of copper and orange on a burgundy background. The images represent the sun and its shadow, and she added copper thread to the coloured yarn to emphasise the shine and glare of the sun. This piece shows her traditional skill and her ability with spatial composition and colour combinations. It was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1982, where S. A. Aurdal was the only artist to represent Norway.

S. A. Aurdal also experimented with materials such as industrially produced pigments instead of the traditional plant-dyed yarn. This enabled her to create more powerful colour combinations, as we can see in the 7-metre-long horizontal woven carpet Høyseteteppet [The throne chair tapestry, 1958–1961]. The carpet is woven in 13 vertical sections and decorates the large table by the throne chair in Håkonshallen [King Håkon’s Hall] in Bergen. The combinations of orange-red and blue colours create a forceful contrast with the surrounding stone walls of the great hall. We can see the impact from the Middle Ages, but S. A. Aurdal does not use narrative elements. Instead, the tapestry consists of abstract and figurative shapes which allude to King Håkon IV Håkonsson and to Bergen’s mediaeval period.

S. A. Aurdal used unconventional materials such as polyester, metal chains and nylon to create sculptural pieces. This allowed her to experiment with the traditional craft of tapestry and to create unconventional textures and volumes. One such example can be found in Fossen [The Waterfall, 1984–1989], where braided vinyl ropes are lashed with metal wire, in grey, silver and green tones. The piece hangs from the ceiling, creating a straight cylindrical shape that ends above a circular mirror on the floor. Thus the sculptural form in this work stands in contrast to the traditional two-dimensional tapestry.

S. A. Aurdal was a productive artist who played an important role in the establishment of modernism in Norway in the 1950s and had several solo and group exhibitions. She made her debut in 1941 at Kunstnerforbundet [The Norwegian Artists Association], Oslo and continued to show her work at the National Gallery, Oslo (1968–1978), Blaafarveværket, Åmot in 1989 and the Grand Palais in Paris (1976). After being chosen to represent Norway at the Venice Biennale in 1982, she received the Norwegian’s State artist’s salary in 1983 and the Norwegian Culture Council’s honorary award in 1991. In 2022, the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo held the largest exhibition of her work to date.