The Four Hundred: Artist Swoon Will Makes Us Swoon
Caledonia Curry - Adrian Bruckmaster
From constructing her portraits with paper-cuts on the side of buildings to driving her handmade raft on the Hudson River, this street-to-studio artist is one dominating the scene.
Brooklyn-based artist Caledonia Dance Curry, better known under the name Swoon, is a creative who has made a name for herself with stunning street art that would stop anyone in their tracks.
Curry is one of the first female street artists that gained mass recognition for her contemporary art in a community that is mainly male-dominated.
A beautiful aspect of her work is its evolution from decomposing off the sides of buildings, giving her art a time to live and die in the elements, just like the subjects in her portraits.
She has now ventured into studio art and changed her perspective on the lifetime of her pieces.
“I’ve gotten to the place where I’ve threaded through so many layers of meaning and life into my work that I’m okay if one aspect of it is also a square over a couch,” Curry told The Verge in an interview, “Like this is a portrait that’s part of a larger process, and if there’s a piece of it you can keep, that’s awesome.”
Her latest collection, Swoon: Wholeness in Mind, was shown at the Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe from late May to early July and explores the delicate facets of her subjects in the ordinary, giving each piece an authenticity that exudes beauty in the natural.
Drawing from her roots in street art, Swoon, in many pieces in her collection, paints on relatively insignificant and unconventional items such as window screens, metal doors, and even lunchboxes.
Mandalas and doilies are recurring design elements within each piece of artwork, which not only ties the collection together in similarity but allowing the subjects in her art to be backdropped with delicate yet powerful patterns.
The first collection shows a woman breastfeeding a child surrounded by vibrant hues of pink and orange in a kaleidoscope-like mandala.
Centering around the woman's beauty and her ability to birth and nourish a child with her own body can be seen as a concept Curry was being intentional with, showing the divinity in femininity.
We meet Maram, an exuberant woman in a hijab, Edline, a young girl in a flower crown, Alison, an older lacemaker, and even Thalassa, a spirit of the sea in Greek mythology.
And the subjects almost seem to be alive as there is a fantastic depiction of motion within Curry's art, much like how Thalassa is majestically soaring from the ocean and heads straight off the paper. Or the gorgeous Aba in "Aba Variant J," with drumsticks in hand, towers above the city below her and plays a beat off the tops of buildings.
The natural subjects reflect just how much Curry takes to the streets for inspiration as she always has and executes portraying deep emotions in unique pieces that are worth its overwhelming success.
And like with each of her collections, she means to inspire. This year, she collaborated with PBS American Portrait to turn a 14-foot truck into a moving diorama portraying domestic scenes from January to February of this year.
“The House Our Families Built” asks for viewer participation and contemplation. The moving performance and art installation discuss ancestral histories, how they affect each of us, and how past events, traumas, and triumphs add to who we are and the legacy we will leave behind.
This is not the first installation that has been out of the ordinary from her everyday household items.
Between 2008 and 2009, Curry and more than 50 other collaborators handmade a series of rafts and traveled down the Hudson River. The rafts were constructed out of recycled items, making a beautiful floating structure.
“I mean it was really astonishing in this way where we did it, we built it. But still the feeling of being out on it floating. . .You’re like, ‘Oh my god, I am driving my art at sea.’ Just a wild feeling.” Curry said in an interview.
But with much success, Curry stays grounded and gives back through her art and humanitarian efforts.
In 2010, she helped build sustainable structures and a community center with the Konbit Shelter after the earthquake in Haiti. She founded a non-profit organization called The Heliotrope Foundation to continue community efforts and help with projects based in Haiti, New Orleans, and Braddock.
Her art is a catalyst for change. She has helped a woman with drug addictions in rehab centers through art therapy and worked with an artist collective known as "Transformazium" to turn an abandoned church into an arts center.
Curry shows how much her fans mean to her and reflects their joy and encouragement to them with pieces that stun and leave all of us in awe.
Her most recent Instagram post asked her followers to pose questions that "can be simple, practical, esoteric, academic, psychological, [and] emotional" as she retreats into this summer in solitude filled with creative contemplation.
Curry has continued to impress since her debut, upping the standards for herself with each collection, and we can be sure to see another intricate and ethereal presentation at the end of the summer.