A closer look at Swoon's creative process

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your artistic practice?

My name is Caledonia Curry and when I started working on the streets in 1999-2000, I took the name Swoon, as most of my activities were illegal and I needed a pseudonym. Since then, I've spent my creative life asking the question of how art can become part of our daily lives. I've answered that question in dozens of different ways, from street posters and billboards to raft flotillas and decades-long community rebuilding projects, to small gestures like creating a series of emojis that live in your phone. I believe so strongly in the creative force that I'm constantly exploring how we can live with it and how it can change our lives.

What is your background and how did you get into design?

I started painting at the age of 10. My childhood had been extremely unstable up to that point, but suddenly there was a period of calm and my mother took me to a painting class. It was a sort of Bob Ross painting class and I was the only child in a room full of pensioners, but they embraced me, and I loved it! The positive reactions and attention I received in that class, and the joy I saw on people's faces when I brought the paintings home, somehow filled a very deep need I had, coming from the unstable place I was in, and from that moment on, art became the central pillar of my life.

What inspires you in your daily work as an artist? What triggers the creation of a work?

The whole world inspires me. It really does. I think the greatest joy of being an artist is that the world is so full of richness and fascination, that creating art becomes a way of exploring that more deeply. I've heard it said that true happiness is the result of attention: being attentive enough to see the tender moment exchanged between an exhausted mother on the bus and the stranger helping her lift her stroller, or noticing the way the light filters through the trees in the hours before sunset, or seeing the patterns of an ancient myth that crosses time and different cultures. The whole world is full of moments and phenomena that open up to you, revealing hidden beauties and truths as soon as we find the way to give them the gift of attention.

Can you tell us how you go about creating a work of art? What are the different stages of creation?

The first stage often resembles a bubble rising from the bottom of a lake. It's somehow very slow, like something ancient, primordial, rising up to be seen. It takes its time. I'm only subconsciously aware of it at first, and then, pop! The bubble bursts on the surface of the water and I say - ahh yes! That's it! And now I can articulate the idea. But that's just the beginning. If it's a big idea, like the raft flotilla or the film I'm working on now, I often have to talk about it for two years before it catches on. Talking is not procrastination, and it doesn't mean the idea won't happen. It's simply about creating the energy and community I need to move the project forward. Then I get started: sketches, models, prints, drawings, I get to work. If it's a major work, there are often collaborators, so there are meetings, planning and strategies to be put in place. As an artist, I need to do things like drawings and paintings that allow me to be alone and go deep inside myself, and I also need to do work that allows me to collaborate and connect with others, which is part of my way of keeping balance in life.

Follow Swoon on its Instagram page.

The catalog for the "Time Capsule" exhibition held on Fluctuart is available on fluctushop.fr.