Gorilla - SOLD Print

Born in 1977 on Earth, raised by monkeys till the age of four before coming to London to become a shaman's apprentice, Chris Swain is a painter currently living and breathing in Yorkshire. "My work often starts with a memory, of an intense experience or emotion, distilled and filtered over time and condensed into a singular image. Each painting I make, is an attempt to capture something fleeting and contain it, so it can't float away. I am interested in the essence and energy of an experience, memory, thought or feeling I have had, many of these paintings live in my head for a long time. I suppose I am exploring my memory's process of recording the essence of an experience; collecting all the sensory information, and condensing this into a singularity, a preserved moment, which I then try to paint. I can never fully recreate these memories as they exist in my head, but I am compelled to keep trying. I am intrigued by the nature of memory and it's influence on my perception of reality. I don't want to forget. I have always collected mementos and tokens to remind me of experiences I have had. My paintings are objects I create that hold a memory or idea for me, and embody that feeling or emotion. Each painting starts with a different inspiration and often leads to very different styles of work, depending on how I believe best to transfer the internal experience of the memory that has been crystallized in my mind, onto canvas. The different styles of work I make, feel like an authentic expression of the different sides of my personality and are reflective of the multiple strands of my identity.  Colour is always hugely important to my work, sometimes figurative detail and composition takes the lead, sometimes it's just the idea, sometimes it's an experiment, Music is always a big inspiration to my work (and always on in my studio!), I have adopted the mixing and sampling techniques of my favorite music into my paintings, often using collage and found images, and I always try to evoke certain atmospheres or moods in my work too. I like to mix things together in my work to see what happens, abstract with figurative,  free-form automatism with meticulous detail, reality and unseen energy. I call them all Soul Sketches. My influences are varied and wide ranging.  I was exposed to lots of American painting growing up, as well as many inspiring British painters and street artists where I lived in London.