Chris Swain is an artist and painter living and working in the UK.
He has been making work for over twenty-five years and has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions across the UK.
His paintings are held in private collections internationally, and he has completed commissions for a range of institutions.
Swain’s current practice focuses on The Anthropocene, a series of mixed-media paintings exploring humanity’s impact on the natural world, with particular attention to its effect on wildlife. The work reflects on fragility, loss, and the tension between the natural and the constructed, drawing attention to the ways human activity reshapes ecosystems and living forms.
His paintings are created using a process he describes as “painting with paper.” Found images are cut, layered, and collaged onto the canvas, chosen for their colour, texture, and symbolic connection to the subject matter. These elements are then worked into the surface with paint and brush, creating a unified, painterly image that blurs the boundary between collage and traditional painting. Music plays a constant role in the studio, and Swain draws parallels between his visual process and musical sampling – layering, remixing, and allowing unexpected relationships to emerge.
Underlying this material practice is a long-standing interest in memory and perception. Many of Swain’s works begin with a remembered experience or emotional state, distilled over time and translated into a single image. Each painting is an attempt to hold onto something fleeting – to preserve the essence and energy of a moment before it disappears. While these memories can never be fully recreated, the act of painting becomes a way of recording, containing, and revisiting them. His works function as visual mementos, carrying emotion, thought, and experience forward in physical form.
Chris Swain Art 