23 december 2022, Flor Linckens
The enigmatic Imaginations of Ruby Swinney
Until 27 January 2023, AKINCI in Amsterdam is presenting a solo exhibition by Ruby Swinney. The South African artist mainly works with oil paint on a background of silk or semi-transparent tracing paper.
With her brightly coloured and monochromatic works she creates new, mysterious and timeless landscapes that evoke a certain recognition, but appear a bit strange at the same time — not least because of the slightly distorted or overexposed characters she depicts. As a viewer you cannot connect with them because their faces seem to lack expression or age, almost as if you're viewing an incomplete memory. The result contains something surreal and her work also has a nostalgic character due to the monochrome tones, as if you were looking at an old photo in dark red, purple or turquoise.
Swinney: "I think I have certain responses to the present technological revolution that echo the Romantics' earlier responses to industrialisation. They reacted by embracing ideas of the sublime in the natural and spiritual or mythical world… In my work, I’m trying to evoke this painful longing and uncertainty of what it is to be human, as we fearfully peer out at a shifting world that is becoming dark and unfamiliar.”
Through her practice, the artist wants to say something about the uncertainty and vulnerability of human existence, especially in the disrupted times in which we now live. Her work is also about the slow disappearance of nature, which is starting to react in an increasingly unpredictable manner. The idyllic flora and modern, human constructions are juxtaposed in her paintings in realistic-looking locations that offer the viewer a sense of scale. But while Swinney often uses self-made photographs as a starting point for her work, these composite locations do not exist as such in reality.
In her work, Swinney is inspired by ancient Greek mythology, spirituality, religious iconography and rituals, the anthroposophical ideas of Rudolf Steiner, the work of writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro and the romantic movement.
She graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Arts in 2015 and has since shown her work in a solo exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Arts Africa (MOCAA) in Cape Town. Her work has been included in the collection of Zeitz MOCAA (who purchased her entire graduation collection), the M&C Saatchi Abel Collection and the Frank Kilbourn Private Collection, among others.
