Chris Swain is an artist and painter living and working in the UK.
He has been creating work for over twenty five years, exhibiting work around the UK, in solo and group shows.
His paintings have been bought by collectors around the world and he has been commissioned to create work for a variety of institutions.
“I am currently working on the Anthropocene series of mixed media paintings that explore ideas around the human influence on the natural world, specifically its effect on wildlife.”
“My current practice involves a technique of painting with paper, finding colours and textures in found images, that also hold a deeper meaning to the wildlife I am depicting, and painting them into the canvas with a brush to create a painterly effect.”
“Music is always a big inspiration to my work and always playing in my studio, by using collage and found images in my work, I am adopting the mixing and sampling techniques of my favorite music into my paintings. I like to mix things together to see what happens.”
“A lot of my earlier work often started with a memory, of an intense experience or emotion, distilled and filtered over time and condensed into a singular image.
Each painting I make, is an attempt to capture something fleeting and contain it, so it can’t float away.
I am always interested in the essence and energy of an experience, memory, thought or feeling I have had, many of these paintings live in my head for a long time.
I suppose I am exploring my memory’s process of recording the essence of an experience; collecting all the sensory information, and condensing this into a singularity, a preserved moment, which I then try to paint.
I can never fully recreate these memories as they exist in my head, but I am compelled to keep trying.
I am intrigued by the nature of memory and it’s influence on my perception of reality.
I don’t want to forget. I have always collected mementos and tokens to remind me of experiences I have had. My paintings are objects I create that hold a memory or idea for me, and embody that feeling or emotion.”
Chris Swain
Chris Swain Art 