New York City Street Artist: Swoon

Since I express my artistic creativity through writing and not art in the traditional sense, I am always fascinated by artists who draw, paint and create with different mediums. This article is about one of those very intriguing artists.

Swoon is a 31 year old female graffiti artist based in New York City. Her main focus is creating life-sized, cut-out, wheat paste prints and paper cutouts of figures based upon people in her life. Of course, Swoon is not her real name. She keeps her real name a mystery to avoid prosecution for vandalism crimes associated with her street art.

I always wonder what these emphatically creative artists think about when they create. Where do they find their inspiration? I’ve found two quotes below from Swoon that allow us to take a peek into her mind and begin to understand where she draws her ability to create such unique street pieces.

“When I first began to do street work, part of my impulse had to do with those things that are meant to disappear and the ability to just let things go. I use recycled newsprint that I order in 90-pound rolls. It’s extremely thin and is one of my favorite papers to use because of the way it decays. It yellows. It cracks. It has this whole life cycle that I really like.”

“I’ve always really had the sense of the way that people store things inside their bodies and the way that everything you’ve ever seen or ever done is a part of you. I felt like in a way if I could somehow draw that, or make an x-ray, maybe it was just your experiences that day or maybe it’s just what you walked past that day, or maybe it’s a deeper story that’s somewhere in there for the telling.”

I hope you enjoy this interview with Swoon as much as I did!