Fine Art
Painting is the heart of an interdisciplinary practice that moves between the studio, the stage, the street and the pages of a journal.
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COLORFUL DIMENSIONS OF THE DREAM
Benjamin Swatez, 2020
Painting on multiple sheets of plexiglass. Dr. Martin Luther King jr.'s speeches are handwritten in gold on underlying sheets, emerging through the negative space of the portrait painted on the plexiglass in front.
KALEIDOSCOPE LENS
Benjamin Swatez & Amanda Azerine DeLuca — Water-based house paint on garage door — 2023
Self-propagating sunflowers and psychedelic peacock feathers of passion frame the personality that wears the kaleidoscope lens. One eye of this courageous being peers out into the world through the lens of the Crown chakra, and the other eye marvels at the colorful patterns of creativity that emanate from within.
THE MULTIPLE LAYERS OF RBG
Benjamin Swatez — Acrylic on layers of plexiglass & canvas — 2021
We are each the chief architect of our own realities, the director of our own movies. In the embodiment of layers and the assumed responsibility of choice, visions and dreams manifest into physical realities. The bottom layer of this painting is recycled house paint poured onto canvas. The middle layer contains golden handwriting of RBG’s values, ambitions, dreams, and integrity to thyself. The top layer is acrylic on plexiglass of the dynamic face that decided not to be complacent, but an author within the ever-evolving colorful layers of the universe.
WHICH WOLF DO WE FEED?
Benjamin Swatez — Acrylic on canvas — 2021
The light in the shadow lives within us all. To deny the existence of either the light or the shadow limits one’s capacity to be whole. This painting welcomes the aesthetic witness to elevate beyond the physical plane of dualities, tear down the forbidden walls that divide us within, and honor all of us.
THE CHRYSALIS
Benjamin Swatez — Acrylic on canvas — 2022
Within the chrysalis, the caterpillar completely reorganizes its tissues to transform into an adult, beautiful butterfly. This is the first painting created after the birth of our daughter. Amanda Azerine DeLuca painted the seven flowers for each of the chakras. Growing roots and wings simultaneously, our bones, muscles, tendons, minds, hearts, and souls are aligned with the oneness of the universe as old skin sheds and new life is welcomed. While holding my newborn daughter to my chest, I painted the majority of this work.
QUEBEC 245
Benjamin Swatez — Acrylic on Canvas — 2025
With governments at odds, humans show up for humans. The water ran out in the Pacific Palisades, but the waterbombers, pilots and crew from Quebec, Canada, showed up. This painting, and individual thank you letter from students in Los Angeles created during The Goodness Tour Los Angeles Fire Relief Project, were delivered to Quebec. This painting honors the humanity, the peace building, and the heroism of people that showed up and served those in need regardless of nationality. In a ceremony in the hangar at the Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport, the consulate general of the United States and Dr. Benjamin Swatez, representing The Goodness Tour, offered his painting and the handmade thank you cards to the crew.
FUSIONS OF THE FORGOTTEN MOMENT
Benjamin Swatez — Oil on upcycled wood, multimedia — 2007
The pieces of canvas juxtaposed into the composition belonged to a military bag that lived through the Bosnian war. The child emerges from the bloody river of genocide, one with a leafless tree. The window of possibilities, literally carved into the decaying walls, is dark. However, there is a sliver of blue peeking out from behind the frame as the child sheds teardrops of innocence that give life to the Koi fish, which symbolizes the overcoming of adversity in the transformation into a golden dragon.
Artist-Research Journal
These are images from Sacred Research Journal #12. Anaconda skin was gifted to Benjamin by an elder in Colombia. Crocodile skin came from an animal hunted for food by an Indigenous family; Benjamin preserved the skin to give it a second life and allow it to continue traveling the world. A beaded bracelet was handmade and gifted by a Shipibo grandmother in the Peruvian Amazon. Bear fur was gifted by a Native American elder from the Pacific Northwest. Nothing is selected simply for decoration. Each material carries a story of place, relationship, exchange, and remembrance. These are more than notebooks. They are sacred research journals: handmade vessels for witnessing, questioning, drawing, writing, remembering, and allowing the unknown to take form. Their blank pages begin not as emptiness, but as possibility.
Material / Studio Inquiry
Across these works, spirit moves through shape and form. A butterfly rises from dandelions growing from a raven perched upon a skull, painted on the salvaged skin of a road-killed beaver. Death becomes ground for life, and one form quietly gives way to another. An astronaut carries LOVE across the chest in magenta street-art script, while an orca swims through the body of a woman. Human, animal, earth, and cosmos dissolve into one another, suggesting that the boundaries between us may be more porous than they appear. These works follow a red thread of metamorphosis and interconnection. We move through one another, learn from one another, and become through relationship. Nothing exists entirely alone; each life carries traces of other lives, other places, and other possibilities.
THOU SHALL NOT STEAL MY RIGHT TO PROVIDE FOR MY FAMILY — EMPOWERED SURVIVOR OF SLAVERY
Benjamin Swatez and Tara — Acrylic and oil on canvas, fabric from clothing and blankets worn while the village of Bahari was enslaved in a brick factory, wood and brass — 2011/12
The painting within the doorway was the very first painting that Tara created after fighting for the freedom of her entire village from debt-bonded slavery. She painted a scarecrow that reflects the title of this piece. I painted the painting on the right within the window. The bricks behind her and moving through her represent the time within forced labor at the brick factory. Written into the bricks are her voice of freedom, her resilience, her empowerment, and her love. The fabric worn during the days of slavery and now are the building blocks of her colorful dreams; the multimedia format represents the building of her new home of freedom.
GALACTIC FLOWER
Benjamin Swatez — Acrylics on canvas — 2024
The sacred patterns move throughout the inner and outer dimensions. The wise sea turtle peacefully emerges from the darkness with illuminated curiosity and wonder. The lotus petals of the divine enlighten the forgotten shadows and lift the veil between worlds.
