Artist Bio Thomas Swanston’s paintings depict the visual and spiritual beauty emanating from nature. Drawing inspiration from the environment, Swanston explores concepts relating to home and migration and the various connotations associated with each. Explaining this underlying philosophy of his work, Swanston states, “The recurring patterns of Sandhill crane migrations remind us of nature’s ability to renew and revive itself, rhythmically changing, yet remaining stable and consistent through the season. Such is also the human life, changing with each year and each generation. Like migratory birds, physical and spiritual travelers alike explore new or familiar places, always to return to the one special locale that they call home.” Using gilded shapes intertwined with abstract washes of color and light, Swanston creates paintings that visually evolve and transform in conjunction with the natural light of a passing day. He brings the beauty of nature into the home and captures the idea that art originates not only through personal introspection, but through the contemplation of nature and place. The environment plays a key role in the construction of Swanston’s paintings and guides the context of each work. Underneath the gold leaf and acrylic paint lies a deeper conversation about species preservation and habitat loss, both conservation efforts important to the artist. Swanston utilizes beauty as the vehicle by which he entices the viewer and provides the bridge for a critical discussion about environmental protection. As a long-time supporter of the Audubon Society and Rowe Foundation, Swanston works to highlight the need for environmental change and migration of ideas necessary to bring us from “here to there.” Thomas Swanston was born 1956 in Annapolis Md., Naval Hospital. He graduated from Hobart & William Smith Colleges 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts, with studies in London and at the Studio School in New York, New York. Swanston matriculated in 1980 and was one of only twelve of the first Parsons Master of Fine Arts Diploma offered. Swanston has been included in 8 museum exhibitions and is published in over 55 trade and lifestyles magazines. Swanston’s work is collected in public and private collections in the US, Europe, Korea, China, Japan, Mexico and the Caribbean. Artist Statement The visual and spiritual coalesce in my surroundings, from which I draw much of my inspiration. For the past 25 years I’ve lived and worked in South Fulton county and have come to know well its history, creeks, and ravines. Seasons change in a profound manner--twice yearly, migrating sandhill cranes rest in the thermal that rises directly overhead. In this mystical setting, my favorite time of the day is sunset, when what you know to be true is evoked but not seen. It is that frame of mind that I capture -- the twilight between observation and imagination. My work is the end result of an omnivorous search for meaning. It emerges from the love of many seemingly disparate elements, including the history, processes, and materials of art making; Nature with a capital “N”, then, with a small “n”; an everything-but-the kitchen-sink approach to color; classic Haiku; the comical of shapes and things paradoxical; Technologies old and new; the spirituality of the natural world, and close observation of simple things come together to form the conceptual underpinnings of my work.In my current body of paintings, the overarching theme of migration carries a multitude of connotations; most notably, migration speaks to the mystical movement through space and time, from one location to another and the ultimate return home. The recurring patterns of sandhill crane migrations remind us of nature’s ability to renew and revive itself, rhythmically changing, yet remaining stable and consistent through the seasons. Such is also the human life, changing with each year and each generation. Like migratory birds, physical and spiritual travelers alike explore new or familiar places, always to return to the one special locale that they call “home.” In their seasonal trips from North to South and then back, and in their victorious return from near extinction back into the cycle of life,sandhill cranes remind the viewer that all journeys have a purpose and an end, no matterhow long they might be or how far away from home they may take us.