“bits of yellow, and orange, white and gray near the center suggest breakup in a digital image transmission, perhaps hinting that even the output of the painter’s mind has acquired the syntax of digital media.” Baker continues, “Swanson has a wonderful way with fine details that, once noticed, can remake our reading of an entire picture, looking suddenly like distant features of land or architecture or simply hovering in scale-less abstraction.”
- Kenneth Baker
Constraint and order are balanced by chance and nature in William Swanson’s methodically abstracted landscapes. The artist creates areas of movement and intuition as he allows paint to pool and coalesce before sanding, while controlled architectural details are made using a strict grid. The quality of the surface is refined and exposed under layers that have been revealed through sanding, resulting in an atmospheric surface with both physical texture and illusory depth. Kenneth Baker described the work best in a 2014, when he reviewed Swanson’s first solo show with EHG:
“bits of yellow, and orange, white and gray near the center suggest breakup in a digital image transmission, perhaps hinting that even the output of the painter’s mind has acquired the syntax of digital media.” Baker continues, “Swanson has a wonderful way with fine details that, once noticed, can remake our reading of an entire picture, looking suddenly like distant features of land or architecture or simply hovering in scale-less abstraction.”
- Kenneth Baker
William Swanson was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1970. He has a BFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design. Swanson has had solo exhibitions at DCKT Contemporary, New York, Marx & Zavattero, San Francisco, and Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles. His work has also been shown at The Neuberger Museum, Cohan Leslie and Browne and Jen Bekman Gallery in New York, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. His work resides in many collections, including The West Collection and The Progressive Art Collection.
