Geraldine Swayne

My figurative paintings combine a rapid performative energy with a mysterious frozen narrative of a context-free film still, typically using an omnivorous variety of sources; personal photographs, found images, pornography etc. to conjure otherworldly narratives and portraits.

“The alla prima, ‘paint as paint’ quality of this work, is emphasised by abstract passages and semi-accidental effects, the transformations and distortions of which assist in probing psychological states, such that we can not quite pin down the ‘events’ we come upon. These alluring, painterly qualities of the painted surface also cause images to further depart from ‘normality’, which makes for an unsettling undertone, uncannily appropriate for times in which people go about their daily business vaguely aware, without grasping it fully, that the very continuation of daily business is under threat.”