Laurel Swenson

Painting is the most interesting and compelling activity I know. You start with a blank canvas and fill it up with something completely new — and the paint goes exactly where you put it. The awkwardness or brilliance of that stroke is yours, all yours.

I am an abstract painter living and working in Vancouver. I am working on process-driven work, and am pursuing abstraction in effort to create work that is evocative, emotional and that responds to the materials. It develops over time with layers of texture, marks, brushstrokes, colour, blood, sweat and tears (and humour!).

I am particularly interested in themes of transition, struggle and growth, (both metaphorically and materially). Each painting is a visual expression of emotion and struggle, externalized through paint and materials. Some feel like storms, some like summer. My work is thematically connected by my focus on mark-making, the presence of the hand, the building of texture, and loose gestural painting.