Tony Swain (b. 1967, Lisburn) lives and works in Glasgow. Swain alters, merges, and obscures printed pictures with paint, using newspaper imagery as a stimulus for his work – its inclusion a mixture of conscious selection and contingency.

           Swain has a collection of print material categorised in his busy studio, logged for further changes or for inclusion in future works. His collaging and painting are intuitive, and he creates mythical spaces from his factual sources. Landscapes, cityscapes, and interiors are among Swain’s subjects, as are more abstract creations infused, nevertheless, with narrative suggestion.

           Each painting achieves a fine balance between the painted scene and the materiality of the newsprint itself, allowing the registration lines, colour bars, and extant elements of text to remain partially visible within the finished composition.