Genevieve Swifte

Artist Statement

Working between the Arctic and Australia, drawing and photography, my recent body of work contemplates environment, presence and sensation to evoke the landscape and climate of Northwest Greenland

Delicate drawings in graphite allow ice, transience and immensity to spill beyond the frame of the photograph. Horizons vanish, water and sky stretch toward nothingness and traces of human life are instilled with the mutability of this place, as though our presence merely grazes the stone as clouds obscure the sky. The horizon takes on a mesmeric quality, gently pulling the eye then retreating beyond the certainty of photography.

Whilst the drawings and black and white photographs play with the impossibility of landscape, the series Sila focuses upon those aspects of the Arctic environment that are close enough to touch. Coming from the bright aridity of Australia, I felt immersed and saturated by the elements in Greenland. The light slips sideways through the atmosphere as winter approaches, from soft gold to long periods of twilight and night skies illuminated by the Aurora. As snow and temperatures fall, the sea and sky meld together, bringing the horizon to settle upon the surface of the skin. Attention shifts from the vast to the intimate, the air makes contact with the inner body through the lungs and Arctic light dances over the water, through the glass of the window, the glass of my lens and into the eye.

Arising from residencies at the Upernavik Museum, Northwest Greenland and the Photomedia Workshop, The Australian National University School of Art, this project has been supported by the ACT Government, the Australian Government through the Australia Council, it's funding and advisory body and with generous donations made through ABAF's Australia Cultural Fund.

Art Forms