Mike Swaney: Efecto Dubuffet

In his new exhibition “Efecto Dubuffet,” Mike Swaney makes a temporary departure from collage and mixed media works to explore painting. Working from the imagination, as opposed to using photographic references, Swaney channels the work of Jean Dubuffet, Art Brut, Outsider Art, and Internet Art as he reflects on the historic impact of African Art on Picasso and Matisse. This new period in Swaney's artistic practice is mirrored in a renewed interest in the idea of expression and outsider art among young contemporary artists. The new works strive to mediate between perceived reality and the creativity of the human mindto be freed, or exorcised, from fear of the unknown by giving form to it.

Mike Swaney (Kimberley, Canada-1978) is a visual artist based in Barcelona. His mixed media works, sculptures, videos, and installations explore absurdity in everyday domestic situations and challenge the idea of performance as a static object. Swaney's work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and art fairs in Barcelona, Copenhagen, Miami, New York, Tokyo, Toronto and Vancouver. In 2008 he participated in the Fountainhead Residency in Miami and in the summer of 2010 he was shortlisted for the Guasch Coranty Painting Prize.

Mike Swaney also collaborates on two blog projects which bring together his current interests, art blog of mike, dedicated to mostly contemporary figurative painting, and Jean Dubuffet, dedicated to art brut/outsider art.