Nolan + Swallow work and process

Leda and Swan
15 July 1961
Crayon and fabric dye on paper
30.5 x 25.5 cm

During the day he painted on the floor, first placing areas of quick colour on prepared board, next sweeping on polyvinyl acetate until the whole 4 x 5 feet area was thick with paint, then seizing another short-handled squeegee and slashing and wiping, cornering and circling like a skater, until another painting was completed…Now over and over again, he was painting Leda and the Swan. Sometimes the woman was bloody, the sawn very savage. Often the figure was ambiguous, incidental, unidentified, the sawn was not. At night he would usually continue on the large boards, or work on paper, for he was having a run.

Cynthia Nolan, Open Negative – An American Memoir, Macmillian, London, 1967, p. 224.
Refers to the internationally successful series of paintings and works on paper based on the Greek myth Leda and the Swan.


A Sad but Very Discreet Recollection of Beloved Things and Beloved Beings

2005, 10 parts
Watercolour on Paper
35 x 25 cm

Swallow has used watercolour in a traditional way; it is the treatment of colour and subject matter, which distinguishes this as a contemporary work. He anchors the birds upside down, as if they were falling and places them on a lucid red backdrop, which alludes to blood and furthermore death – these cues are reinforced by the title of the work. This piece is typical of Swallow who reflects on his artistic process as ‘taking things out of time, transforming objects/narrative into a study or enquiry about itself’. He representation of objects is meticulous and forces an audience to consider their gravity and place within concepts of time.