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Henry Swanson (b. 1993) is a Postwar and Contemporary artist and oil painter living and working in Brooklyn. His work is inspired by cartoons, comics, and his childhood growing up in Dallas.
Profile Pictures by Dannah Gottlieb
Hi Henry! It’s a pleasure to sit down with you! First question that I always ask. How does a regular day look like for you in Brooklyn?
Well, I wake up around ______. I’ll usually avoid my room mate being on a teams interview or google meet or whatever you call them. One of us will go get coffees for the apartment while the other hangs out. I get into the studio around _____. I call five different friends and my mom or my dad while prepping works – they all hate it. I leave work around 5 pm and either go to Lous Athletic Club to watch sports or the bar by mine and draw a little.
I’m curious, growing up in Dallas, what kind of kid were you? What did you enjoy doing, and how did you spend your time?
Chatty. I feel like it was nothing wildly unusual. My pre k teacher had an eye patch, my daycare was next door to a bar called Le Tiburon,
Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark.
Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we’d make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it’s breathtaking, I suggest you try it.
Seeing that you’re originally from Dallas, what brought you to Brooklyn?
I moved back home after college for a few years to hone some of my skills. My first couple of shows (here in New York) I painted in Dallas, and at the time most of my college friends were here already. And after moving here a lot of my friends from Dallas subsequently came up too so it felt all too natural once i got here.
Alright… when did you start to paint, and when did you start taking being an artist seriously?
I didn’t start making anything close to a painting until I was 17. Before that it was a lot of mucking around with graff and drawing at school, but I definitely like most people saw art as a period to shoot the shit and not work. But by the time it was time to look at colleges I realized i didn’t want to go to some big southern state school or wouldn’t fit in at one at least. I mean I suck at math, I read slow as all hell, and could never cut it in the Kappa Alpha Delta whatever you call it. So an art teacher of mine put me on to all of the art schools I could be looking at , and in Texas they don’t really tell you about art school, like, at all. So when I started touring those types of schools I fell in love with that type of thing – or the possibility of it.
Alright Henry, with these next series of questions, I will try to delve into your work as best as possible. Forgive me if I’m wrong in any of my observations… So, Much of your work references pop culture. What specific moments or aspects of pop culture do you feel the strongest connection to?
As a kid my dad would share pop references to me that he remembered from his dad so from the perspective of age I was hearing about things that weren’t just before my time but way before my time. Like oldies radio was always on when we left church on sundays. Casey Kassem top 100 countdown from 1965 would be on when we were getting donuts and my dad would talk about that and quote movies relentlessly and never tell me which ones. I’d go to school and quote those things and teachers would be like “wait how do you know that” – worried that a first grader had accidentally watched Full Metal Jacket. In my work I feel like I want my viewers to have that dysphoria where the reference is somehow familiar but rumored, like an awful art world game of telephone.
What do you look for when choosing your next motif and character to paint?
Like those conversations with my dad I like the thought of introducing the viewer to something that doesn’t feel like outright pop. The speed of the image in today’s platforms makes the notion of pop feel obsolete in a way that feels reassuring somehow, I’m in the library, the movie theater, the kitchen, the living room, the 1970s, international and hyper local all at once from the platform of the internet which, all at once, can feel incredibly obsolete but infinitely relaxing. To be a part of everybody’s everything can be horrible but to paint something so banal like a plate of fish and have someone go ‘I know exactly where you sourced that’ – is almost the perfect reaction whether they loved or hated the work. It’s like aiming to be called a hack.
And the various scenes in your work, how do you come up with them? What’s the story behind them?
Everything I’m aiming for is sad. hahah. In my last show ‘Low Hanging Fruit’ at Plan X Gallery in Milan, I spoke about how in figurative art I like the challenge of creating an image but that for me the content is almost irrelevant. I love people going ‘what would you know about that’ (something art people seem transfixed by). And in that, I love the notion of going “Absolutely nothing at all, but don’t those colors fucking hum when you look at em? Turn the piece swideways or fucking upside down and the piece still exists to feed your eyes.” Of course I’d never pick something so grotesque (at least not yet). But to a point its the formal beats of an image that. resonate over subject.
Some of your pieces seem to critique or play with conventional ideas. What messages or themes do you aim to challenge through your art?
A lot of it is the norms of my own youth in Texas, Not so much politically though people seem to love assuming its that I’m from some “fuck you, dad” culture of escaping my roots. But, no, I was such a happy child and love my hometown so much. I think it for me feels like a perpetual first therapy session. It’s like that space between closing your eyes and falling asleep where you remember a weird afternoon with your friends at age 11 where nothing that interesting happened but you said something off, and it hits you and you can’t believe someone would say that. Or an outfit you wore once. It’s not a nostalgic feeling, but almost a rumple in the fabric.
Can you tell me about any specific topics that are important for you to document through your work, and why they’re important?
Parent child relationships. Romantic infatuations. The conventions of masculinity, Dick Jokes. Religion and the super rich. Bugs Bunny at the Opera. How it’s funny that I don’t live in Dallas but mentally its all I think about. Wearing the same outfit everyday.
How important is humor or irony in your work? Do you view it as a tool to convey deeper messages?
I don’t know if it’s irony as much as it is inconsistency. Like, the object of the exercise for me is that by the end of seeing my whole show the audience has a more complete view of me as the person. For example I run into the critique that my work is scattered often, and I’ve never found a problem with that. People are scattered. I never set out to deliver a lecture series on migratory patterns of birds, or the dissolution of ancient Greece. It’s a snap shot of my brain and at any time that may not feel like much but the honesty in that human audience connection is really what I’m striving for – even if at times that can feel unintelligible.
What is it about cartoons that resonates so well with you?
That it’s a foil and the rest is who cares. the whole plot is ‘damn this rabbit is so annoying’ – and out of that we have everything under the sun.
Would you consider yourself a nostalgic person?
No. Nostalgia feels like a yearn for the past. And boy ever do I yearn. But I think the past is just to be studied, joked about even. But I think it all falls under the same placement of my own curiosity.
Can you walk me through your creative process. From beginning, to end result?
To be fully honest its so much flipping through my cell phone. I love finding someone’s social media post of some intimate moment I definitely was not a part of. Some over-the-couch campy nonsense. Obsession with the idea of the proper family experience has always been a thing for me. Texas really has always been a place where the ‘right thing’ exists and whats at all out of step we ‘just don’t talk about’.
Once I find something I prep my own canvases. I stretch and prime all of my work at night. Usually with a six pack and some bad movie. I use a more classical technique with my work. No gridding. No projecting. Earth toned underpainting. Mostly classical pigments. This means a lot of stuff ends up not working out or getting scrapped. But the stuff that does work, I love. At this point if the piece doesn’t truly excite me I will scrap it. Sometimes a lot of things I love do wind up on the back burner. The more you show the more you hear ‘well they love this more’ or ‘they love that more’ – and you’ve got to find a way to make certain topics more exciting for yourself. But in oil painting that takes more time. Its not airbrush. It’s a slow painful media. But when it looks good the final product is the best feeling I’ve ever felt.
Can you also tell me about your use of symbolism?
I used to be such a fucking cool guy try hard with every bit of imagery I chose. And shamelessly too. Like ‘well everyone’s painting this nowadays so I guess that’s what I’m painting too.’ and I’d kind of just wince and laugh it off while I did it. But now I try harder to lean the conversation towards the actually personal. So much these days is like bad observational comedy. But with more earnest imagery, you’ve got to trust the viewer to like you or engage with you. So lately I’ve tried to be less loud, less young maybe. And trust my audience to come on that trip with me.
How do you approach color?
Usually after sending over a drink for it first.
So with what we just talked about, what are you hoping to convey?
*gets up and walks out of interview*
You currently have a solo show with Plan X Gallery, titled “Low Hanging Fruit”. What’s the story behind that title?
The story’s about just that. Coming from Texas and feeling late starting to painting, I’ve always felt a weight that I wasn’t smart enough to participate in any ‘discourse’. I had never heard the word discourse before for fucks sake! By the time I started showing my art formally I felt so out of place among my peers. In Texas most people asked if I painted houses or businesses. This past year was particularly tough on my professional confidence in regard to what it ‘brings to the discourse’. So the title is a bit of a nod to my acceptance that I love the honesty of my work over the intellect or loudness it might lack.
Can you tell me about your body of work for this exhibition. What was your inspiration behind it?
It was inspired by the things people do to distract themselves from the self. We watch movies with clear good guys and bad guys. We alter our appearances. We experiment with our sexuality. We Find religion. We shop at the mall. We find community and explore alone. Many of these things could mean also finding the self. But what fun is talking about that. I’m a painter not a local community rec room.
In a parallel universe who would you be? and what would you be doing?
Lobster Fisherman. But theres a lot of time left on the clock.
Can you tell me a story about a time when a connection with someone had a big impact on you?
Hard pass.
What qualities do you find most important in the people you choose to spend time with?
Perspective. I’d take perspective over loyalty any day. I text and talk to more than anything the friends who I agree with almost nothing on. It’s the best.
Anybody you look up to?
Too many names. If you’re one of the five people I bug on the phone everyday. And My younger sister.
What motivates you?
Oh so many things. I operate a little too much out of spite probably but oh well. I used to wake up at 8 am in Texas and go get coffee with my mom or dad on the way to the studio in the warehouses and be in by 9 am so I could work, see the other artists. and go grab a beer with my dad after work and shoot the shit on painting ideas, then go home lightly drunk and eat and pass out. I think getting back to that feeling every since I got to New York is one of the feelings I search for.
How would you describe a perfect day?
See above, but also: Probably a haircut or something and a tiny coffee. Go to the studio to work on whatever is in there. My printer is actually working fabulously. I get a call from my Emmanuel Perrotin, he told me he wants to play pickle ball later with David Zwirner and Larry Gagosian. They all want to hang out and think I’m very cool. Jeffrey Deitch will meet up with all of us for drinks after.
I paint and do relatively well at pickle. All of my jokes land. At drinks, they all bicker over who I get to sit next to, and we have perfect friendship chemistry. I wear all four of their jackets over my shoulders on the walk home cause its chilly. All four of them try to kiss me in front of my apartment. It’s super smooth. I say no because I’m a classy girl. Then they all blush wave goodnight.
Alright Henry, I always ask these two questions at the end of an interview. The first is. What’s your favorite movie(s) and why?
School of Rock. Uncontested. but also: Fletch, Airplane, Scream, Beverly Hills Cop.
The second is. What song(s) are you currently listening to the most right now?
New Vince Record Anonimo Veneziano by Stelvio Cipriani