TONY SWAIN

– Liza Dimbleby, 2022

The Modern Institute, Osborne Street presents new works by Tony Swain. Expanding uponSwain’s favoured medium of acrylic paint applied directly to newsprint, several new worksbegan with a blank panel: an element used by the artist decades earlier, reintroduced at asprawling scale.

Swain alters, merges, and obscures printed pictures with painted ones, using this materialsupport as a space to reconfigure and overpaint the original information. His paintingsconjure phantastic images and representations via repetition, the layering paint over theprinted page, and the sewing together of newspaper parts to create utopian panoramas.Swain’s collection of primary material is categorized in his studio, and consciously logged tobe used in future works. His tearing techniques have been perfected to achieve a certainfinish in the configuration of images, clean smooth edges for curvatures and jagged rips formountain ranges. Three new panel works are installed alongside the works on paper, alongwith a historic panel work from 1990, spanning the development of Swain’s technique andworking style.

Landscapes, cityscapes, seascapes, and interiors are among Swain’s subjects, as are moreabstract creations infused, nevertheless, with narrative suggestion. Each painting achieves abalance between the painted scene and the newsprint itself, allowing the registration lines,colour bars, and the printed text of its verso to be partially visible within the painting.

Tony Swain (b.1967, Lisburn, Northern Ireland) Selected solo presentations include: Worksor Everyone, The Modern Institute, 3 Aird’s Lane, Glasgow (2017); The Modern Institute,Aird’s Lane, Glasgow (2015); Kunstverein Freiburg 2015; BALTIC Centre forContemporary Art, Gateshead 2015; Drowned Dust, Sudden Word, Fruitmarket Gallery,Edinburgh (2012); Afterwards in Pictures, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2011); Recollection Has Not Been Mentioned, Herald St, (2010); Temperature is here too, ArtNow, Tate Britain (2009); and Impure Passports, Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2008).

Swainwas one of the artists representing Scotland in Venice as part of the 52nd Venice Biennale in2007. Recent group exhibitions include: Continue Without Losing Consciousness, DCA,Dundee (2014); A Picture Show, GOMA, Glasgow (2013); Transmitter/ Receiver, HaywardGallery, London (2011-2013, touring to mima Soundspace, Middlesbrough, The Lightbox,Woking, and Tullie House, Carlisle); and Le Drapeau Noir, Glasgow (2010).