I’ve selected these paintings because they are loosely connected by the idea that they all try to capture feelings and sensations that occur within the brain, they are expressions of sensations within the consciousness, pictures of my soul as certain times. I wanted to paint images of the internal rather than the external, I wanted to describe the inside of my soul, mental memories of a feeling I have experienced.

I have tried to describe those changes of consciousness, the chemical and electrical impulses that happen within the brain that can be felt and shared yet cannot be seen or described verbally. Such as how a certain piece of music can affect the nervous system and the mind creating a rush of blood to the head, a tingling of the spine, or how viewing a beautiful sunrise can affect me physically and emotionally but these changes happen in my soul. These paintings can appear abstract but they are representations of something real, something that happened to my soul something that I can remember. They are mind maps, like a screen shot of your chemical and electrical impulses of the brain at a specific time. I have tried to explain this state. I wanted to describe laughter on canvas, shared laughter, that intense electrical impulse that is experienced in the brain of a group of people sharing a joke, laughing together, that indescribable explosion that bonds and connects and crosses languages and ignites us.

These paintings are soul sketches, internal portraits, electrical memories.

I first had a glimpse of Chris Swain’s work over ten years ago. A passionate articulate artist, Chris’s work has an honest sincerity to it that continues to challenge and affect me. Paintings exploring the artist’s  response to the world around him manifest themselves in forms of magical realism, absurdism and observations of the animal kingdom. It is refreshing to meet an artist who has not been swayed by the fickle fashions of the art world. The artist’s body of work is a collection that continues to inspire. We hope you enjoy the work of Chris Swain as much as we do, the inaugural artist of Freedom Studios online Gallery.