Project Room: Out of the Woods

About

Grounded in folklore and filtered through a contemporary lens, Out of the Woods brings together familiar creatures and distant myths, inviting viewers to encounter them anew. This new series follows the success of his 2024 and 2025 solo exhibitions at RHODES.

Swan’s portraits present brightly coloured anthropomorphic figures in his signature semi-surreal, semi-grotesque style. Each portrait represents an animal character from myth or folklore. Presented in a classic three-quarter pose, the portraits echo those of historical figures, emphasising the character and presence of each subject. The creatures’ human expressions reveal subtle hints of the roles and qualities associated with them: attentiveness, cunning, endurance, grace, curiosity, and quiet independence.

Having spent years developing his distinctive painting style, Swan uses oil paints to create his textural figures, scraping and folding the paint over itself to create delicate line work and textures of fur and teeth. His figures are as much portraits of animals as they are studies of the human expression. A slight curve of a lip or the squint of an eye can completely alter the character and emotion of the subject. Taking inspiration from the people he meets in his native city of Glasgow, Swan is a master of emotion; we know these figures are animals, but their real expressions make them distinctly human.

Out of the Woods brings together Swan’s long-standing interest in folklore and portraiture, creating a space where animal characters become familiar and human. Through texture, expression, and subtle gesture, these figures sit somewhere between myth and reality. They invite us to look closely, recognise ourselves in their expressions, and reconsider these mythologies as real, lived characters.