Caledonia Curry has been making art for more than a quarter century. As Swoon, she left a lasting mark on the international street art scene, even if most of her paste-ups have long disappeared. Her work stands out from other artists who left their mark on the streets. Not only are most of her contemporaries men, and spray cans the defining medium of the genre – whether applied straight to the wall or using stencils – but she literally carved her own niche with delicate portraits block-printed from intricate woodcuts.
A lot has changed since the height of the global street art movement in the late 90s and early 00s. Collaborations with communities and a belief in the transformative potential of art continue to feed the narratives at the core of Swoon’s practice. While intuition may have been the main driver of earlier works, printmaking allows them to have several iterations. All have since grown into a comprehensive body of work that reflects the processing of a life lived – in Caledonia Curry’s case, one overshadowed by family histories of mental illness and addiction.
The Life of the Work is the perfect title for a mini-retrospective of works created since Swoon last visited London more than a decade ago. Ranging from community projects in response to oil spills in New Mexico, or to rising sea levels that took the artist down the rivers of her native America all the way to Venice; from examples of collaborations with victims of natural disaster in Haiti to those affected by the opioid epidemic in Philadelphia. Elements that were first shown in the streets are displayed alongside works previously shown as part of immersive installations at museums.
Named after subjects who range from personal friends and people met along the way to mythical figures, portraits are assembled into large-scale cutouts, mounted on wooden doors or staged as layered sets. They come together as a dreamlike environment that holds stories of loss and joy and strikes just the right balance between sadness and beauty.
Prints from the Sibylant Sisters series point towards what’s to come with characters from an ongoing project that further expands Caledonia Curry’s narratives into time-based mediums. She is writing a fairy tale to help explore those moments in life that are incomprehensible. Creating an imaginary world that comes alive in stop-motion takes of drawings, puppets and real-life actors, the film project aims at the widest possible audience. In a world that doesn’t allow much freedom of expression in public spaces, a visit to the cinema may come closest to stumbling upon art in the streets. Here’s hoping against the odds that there may also be some wheatpastes appearing across town in Brick Lane.
Swoon, The Life of the Work, 2nd July – 13th August 2026, Woodbury House
