Doug Swinton

CALGARY, AB

I never really intended to make art a career, but it just keeps happening. Maybe it’s living in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains surrounded the spectacular landscape. Maybe it’s that my mom was always in the kitchen painting wicker baskets of bright fruit with Chianti wine bottles, or maybe it was all the doodles and drawings that adorned each and every page of my math book. Somehow, art has now become my career.

Since my childhood, drawing and painting have always played an important role in my life. A big part of me never really left kindergarten. I still live for the “Hey Mom, look what I made!” I think exhibiting in galleries is just a bit of an extension of that. How do I describe my art? That’s like trying to hit a moving target. Just when I think it’s going in one direction, the ever elusive leopard slips away and changes its spots.

It’s always been more about the doing than the end product. It’s like being at a live concert. The energy that comes from the doing is a highly powerful thing. I also get bored very easily so I tend to flit from subject to subject. But, as J R Tolkien said, “Not all those who wander are lost”. No matter what the subject, the aim is always the same: the most amount of information with the least amount of brushstrokes.

There’s no better place to live than Canada. The close proximity of the prairies, foothills and mountains of Alberta makes my home province a never-ending dream. I’ve been lucky, and have painted in many countries, and to me there is still nothing more beautiful than a cold beer, a hot Calgary summer sunset and a paint brush.