Featured Artist of The Week: Simone Swaine!
"Environment, exploration and materiality are key components to my practice, a means for me to
understand and communicate the world around me. Inspiration comes from my daily walks where I
observe nature, landscape and ecological processes. I am not searching for the literal truth instead I
seek an expressive and emotional reaction to process, place, time and geophysical activity.
Using experimental play as a strategy for making work I draw, collage, paint, print and sew onto
unconventional found, re purposed and ephemeral materials. My work develops in stages,
continuously reconstructing, deconstructing and manipulating these materials, nothing is wasted,
every fibre and thread cut is kept and used, paint on the table is mopped up by rags that will form
new works.
Defects and unintentional flaws are left visible, I avoid the urge to cover my mistakes instead they
become purposeful and create their own narrative. Their alterations happen haphazardly evoking new representations in parallel to my own intention. I play with the constraints alongside materiality and stretch these as far as I can. Heavily textured and layered surfaces are a powerful element of the work, engaging other senses besides sight to evoke sensations, memories and associations."
Selected artwork:
Artworks in order:
Circumstantial
74 circles made from jetsam rags, paper and plastic; pulped. 90cm x 90cm approx. July
2021. Price on request.
The tangled lives that lay within the sea,
The fragments of stories that litter our shores.
Weather beaten, shark eaten, sea salt rotten.
Fisherman’s rags cruise liners linen, beach goers litter, a refugees scarf, a widows handkerchief; rags
and riches.
Collected, constructed, configured
Pulped, punched, pitched and stitched
This is their story.
Conspicuous
Jetsam Floor tile, book page, card and thread. 30cm x 30cm. July 2021. £175
Land lay under foot,
People before stood,
Fragments of time,
Memories that are not mine,
Leiden the objects I find,
Society intertwined.
Holy Grail
Jetsam rag, paper and card. Acrylic paint and thread. 20cm x 30com approx. Aug 2021. £150
The sea is sore,
The things that it stores;
Sodden paper, burlap scrap, plastic mishap and all our crap.
We turn our back.
The sea, she churns it back.
Pick Pocket
Jetsam rusted metal, leather and thread. 15cm x 25cm approx. July 2021. £200
Washed ashore and laid bare,
Deformed and decayed objects
Discarded and redundant.
Battered by the elements
Laden with cracks, scars and bruises
They communicate their journey
I get lost amongst their story.
Susceptible
Jetsam plastic, card and thread. 30cm x 30cm. July 2021. £150
The tide cuts in and leaves a line.
She brings in a collection of her contents.
She communicates what is happening,
She tells us 1000 stories
She keeps a further 1000 secretes.