tenants / Geraldine Swayne
Geraldine Swayne is a painter best known for miniatures in enamel on metal, but her practice also includes moving image and music. She was pioneer digital special effects programmer, and has made numerous experimental films, including the 1999 Super8-to-Imax film ‘East End’ with Nick Cave. For ten years she was also a member of the artist-initiated ‘Krautrock’ band Faust.
Her figurative paintings combine a rapid performative energy with the mysterious frozen narrative of a context-free film still. Her work possesses an interior psychological narrative, which is amplified with painterly effects that speak to the unconscious mind rather than the intellect.
Her work has been acquired by private and public collections internationally, including Magasin3 Museum Stockholm, The Ruth Borchard Collection, Oxford University and the Labour Party. Recent exhibitions include ‘Annunciation’ at Charlie Smith London, Royal Academy Summer show (prize-winner) and ‘Women can’t Paint’ at Turps Gallery, London.
‘I paint rapidly in enamel because of it’s concentrated cumulative effect and its uniquely luminous colour. The smaller pictures invite a close physical relationship between subject and viewer, which makes for a private and slightly transgressive feeling, like looking through a keyhole’.