SWOON On The Power Of The Temporary

In a recent issue of Swindle Magazine the Wooster Collective interview street artist SWOON. It gives a lot of insight into her background and inspiration for her paper-cut outs that have covered New York City. This quote on how the temporariness of her work, really stood out:

I know that people respect the extreme commitment that I put into my work. It’s sometimes hard for people to understand how I can spend so much time on a piece and then put it up on the streets where it can be gone so quickly.

At first, I was precious about everything and wanted my work to be permanent. And because I knew that it wasn’t permanent on the street, I wasn’t putting all I had into my work. But then something happened where I stopped caring about permanence and started putting everything I had into the work. At that moment, everything changed for me. It all came from a cutout portrait I did of my grandfather. Because it was of my grandfather, I gave everything I had in making it. And when I finally finished it, I put it up on the street and never felt happier. And the amazing thing I learned was that the work that I put the most into seemed to last the longest. For example, the portraits I did of my grandfather lasted over two years on the street. Today, my commitment to the process of creating art for the street only grows stronger. People are now seeing less of my work in New York only because I’m putting more into the work that I’m actually doing.

I like my artwork to have a lifecycle. I’ve done paintings using stencils. But for me the paintings don’t do anything. They just stay there. But in working with paper, as I do now, the pieces become alive. It’s organic. The paper curls. It ages. It rots. It’s responsive.

SWOON - SWINDLE Magazine
SWOON on Wikipedia