Duncan Swann, whose paintings are currently part of EAST 06, has already gotten well-deserved attention for his work, beautiful, highly detailed paintings rich with allusion to a politically charged past. Swann graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2004. Originally from Sheffield, he has been based in London for nearly a decade, developing a very unique style of painting that poaches and reinterprets the visual, art historical vaults of Western Colonialism.
"The current work exhibited at EAST forms part of a large and ongoing body of work which attempts to confront issues of power and domination in contemporary culture, which extend out of a history of Western Colonialism. This subject has formed the core of my work since the beginning of my MA and was central to the installation piece, 'Event' that I exhibited in my final show at the RCA. Within that broad definition of subject I am particularly interested in notions of repetition, cause and effect and the circularity of events." As described in the EAST catalogue, Swann's imagery is of the human aspects of greed, naivety and folly. He uses images of colonial subjects from 19th and 20th century newspapers, animals and birds he has found on the Internet and in National Geographic magazines. He also uses the photographic archives at the British Library, especially images of the British in India. Frequently the paintings are underpinned by a gentle satire; the birds in the images often confront the viewer with knowing looks, as the human protagonists stumble through exotic landscapes unaware of the threats contained therein. The past and the future merge, Colonial Africa, the swamps of Borneo, the Wild West and apocalyptical visions of our own making. The grand old tradition of oil painting and popular cartoons are morphed into a vision of the primitivism of the West.
"My work has largely taken landscape painting as the formal context within which the ideas have been expressed and going back five or six years I was painting sports venues such as running tracks and five a side football pitches as a form of synthetic landscape on which a city's inhabitants pursue personal goals and ambitions. The series was called 'Personal Best' and viewed the sports ground as a vehicle for the projection of dreams and aspirations that were essentially democratic in nature. I was particularly interested in the idea that these urban spaces might contain some form of communal memory as a result of the events that had taken place there, much as a field that had once witnessed some historic battle."
When asked about his major influences in developing the ideas behind the work and in deciding to present it in such an appealing, traditionally painterly way, Swann says "the use of art historical references is an attempt deliberate ploy which is used to play with the notion of time. I would like these paintings to operate within a form of vacuum in which time is suspended. That what we are witnessing was taking place yesterday, today and will take place tomorrow. So while the imagery may be derived from both art historical sources and late 19th C photographic collections there is an attempt at avoiding nostalgic connotations and somehow ironing out the temporal element. On top of this I have tried to present the subject in terms that are to some extent playful and which allow a space for the viewer to enter the work. I wanted to avoid sermonising, making work that was essentially preaching to the converted, and to this aim I am attemting to make work which is visually interesting and which deals with issues that are of importance to me without being overly prescriptive. First and foremost I see myself as a painter and all of the pieces form part of an ongoing project that involves the development of a personal vocabulary which will sustain my practice moving forward. The current body of work allowed me to push that vocabulary, in terms of visual subject matter, into areas that have substantially increased the visual possibilities that are readily available to me."
Swann seems impressed with this year's selection of artists at EAST. "I've just come back from installing the show and all of the artists have been together in Norwich for the past few days. I was struck by the sense of openness and generosity that existed between the artists. Often group shows can have a competitive undercurrent to them and at East I saw no real sign of this. I believe that this 'generosity of spirit' is something which comes across as a theme which is common to much of the work. Matt Stokes, Rory Macbeth, Tom Ranahan, John Goodwin..I think that all of their work deal with issues that in some sense is informed by a notion of community and somehow involve an offer of inclusivity. This is a common characteristic to much of the work on show and adds, while the core issues that are at play might have the potential to be heavy and non-negotiable, a certain playful edge which should allow visitors to the show to engage with the content."
Swann will soon be taking a break from the studio to re assess the work of the last couple of years. "It's been a period in which I've been working flat out and taken big strides, though not always in the right direction. I want to take a bit of time to understand the work that I've made and see where it might take me." We shall eagerly await for the next step.
Duncan Swann, The Matriarch, 2005
The Honeyseekers, 2005
Dreams of Owning the World, 2006
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