SWOON

Swoon presents a socially aware view of the world that surrounds her through the representation of people, often anonymous, who give voice and visibility to a precise occurrence. At times she depicts friends or relatives, caught in a significant moment of their lives, immortalizing their souls which are often transformed into allegories. She carves portraits in linoleum, prints them on Mylar, recycled paper, or tracing paper, which once painted become a one-of-a-kind prints. She’s a master of using cut paper to play with positive and negative space in a conceptually driven exploration of the experience of the spaces her works are intended for.

Caledonia Dance Curry, aka Swoon, was born in New London, Connecticut in 1978 and grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida. She graduated from the Pratt Institute (1998-2001) in Brooklyn, where she now lives and works. While studying painting, she mastered wood cut techniques and began putting up her works on the streets and launched community projects with other young artists. In 2005, Jeffrey Deitch’s New York gallery hosted her first solo show, which received rave reviews from The New York Times. Swoon then became an internationally renowned artist whose works were purchased by the MoMA (New York, 2005) and by the Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York, 2006).

Her works belong to prestigious collections in the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, PS1 Contemporary Arts Center in Long Island City, The Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, and Tate Modern in London. Swoon is also engaged in humanitarian and educational projects (Haiti, Zambia). She has spent the last few years designing, building, and organizing a fleet of boats made from reclaimed materials, the original project was called “Miss Rockaway Armada”, and more recently, “Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea” and “Swimming Cities of Serenissima”, a monumental installation of floating sculptures exhibited in 2008 at Deitch Projects gallery in New York. Two of these rafts were then rebuilt in Slovenia and sailed to Venice for the 53rd Biennale in 2009.

Some more noteworthy exhibitions: The Canyon: 1999-2017, CAC, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2017; To Accompany Something Invisible, Allouche Gallery, New York, NY, 2017; The Light After, Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI, 2016; Swoon, Chandran Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2015; Submerged Motherlands, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY, 2014; Petrichor, State college of Florida Manatee-Sarasota Fine Art Gallery, Brandenton, FL, 2013; The Folding of a New World, collettiva con Monica Canilao e Dennis McNett, Galleria Patricia Armocida, Milano, 2012; Thalassa, Great Hall of New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, 2011; Art in the Streets, Geffen MOCA, Los Angeles, 2011; Fata Morgana, Galerie L.J., Parigi, 2010; Viva la Revolucion, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, 2010; Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea, Deitch Projects, New York, 2009; Feral ( with Monica Canilao), The Luggage Store, San Francisco, 2008; Drown your Boats New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles, 2007; Miss Rockaway, P.S.1, New York, 2006; Since 2000: Printmaking now, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2006; Graffiti, The Brooklyn Museum, New York, 2005; Swoon, Deitch Projects, New York, 2005.