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By Steve Williams
Artwork by Cole Swanson
Canadian Cole Swanson is among the finest of the foreign artists who have stopped over in Taiwan to teach English. Cole has won various people’s choice and juror’s choice awards in shows at the University of Guelph and the Woodstock Art Gallery in Canada, and he was invited to, and participated in, the prestigious Masters Exhibition in 2006 at the Palazzo Cesi in Acquasparta, Italy. His art also earned him a national grant from the Shastri Indo-Canadian institute to study miniature painting in India. Cole has participated in exhibitions on three continents, most recently in Taipei.
Xpat Magazine was fortunate enough to secure some samples of Cole’s latest work and steal him away from his pad long enough to talk about the evolution of his art.
What were your drawings like when you were a kid?
I think that, for the most part, my childhood drawings were standard fare: lots of dinosaurs, animals, and monsters, that kind of thing. I was a pretty neurotic kid though, and I was always putting a lot of pressure on myself to get things like proportion and shadow right. I saved up for a few ‘how-to-draw’ books to help, but it didn’t take long for people to question my artistic integrity (my class rival, Michael Welsby saw to that).
When did you first realize that art was something you had to pursue?
I was pretty torn when it came to choosing universities. My teachers all pushed for science, but I wasn’t completely sold on it. I tried to ignore all of the people that told me going into art wouldn’t be lucrative.
Where did you go to school?
I chose a university that would give me the option of pursuing either art or zoology. The University of Guelph in Ontario had a pretty good reputation for both programs, so I attempted to do both. It took about three weeks before I dropped science for painting.
What was your experience like there?
I had a good time in university. It made going to a rural Catholic High School seem like the pile of shit that it was. The university had a really eclectic vibe, and there were many exchanges between the various fields of study. I got to combine my interests in zoology with those in fine art, so that was good. I had also been fascinated with India and Indian culture for a long time so, in my third year, I went to Jaipur for a semester in a study-abroad program to learn painting and Hindi.
How was India?
India blew my mind. As I said, I had always wanted to go there, but actually stepping off the plane was a huge moment for me. Every experience in India was so saturated that it was overwhelming at times. At the risk of trivializing the country, it was the perfect muse for me. I studied Rajasthani Miniature Painting in Jaipur while I was there, and then traveled the country making records of the folk art patterns of different regions. I finished my first solo art exhibition at the university when I returned.
Why miniature painting?
When I heard that the semester abroad was in Jaipur, I did some research on the region and found it to be a cultural center for Indian painting. Making miniatures was an interesting departure for me because I’d been hung-up on highly representational work for a long time, and this was a chance to learn an art form that had nothing to do with traditional Western technique. I was able to study pattern, color, and dimension in a way that was totally foreign to me. It was very exciting.
Why did you come to Taiwan?
After finishing school and working things out in Canada for a couple years, I decided that a change in location was necessary. One of my closest friends was from Kaohsiung, so I had been introduced to Taiwanese culture through him. The demands of my university debt, the availability of job opportunities, and the unique traditional and modern artistic sensibilities of Taiwan were all very good reasons to come here.
How has living in Taiwan benefited your art and art career?
I was amazed to see such a vibrant, and cutting-edge art scene in Taipei. I took my time away from teaching English to build up an exhibition that I could show in Taiwan, and then take home. My first solo show at the Canadian Trade Office and a second showing at the Chung Yuan University in Chong-Li gave me the incentive to keep things going here. It wasn’t until after a year of being surrounded by Taiwanese children that I decided to take up my current series of portraits.
What is the inspiration behind your newest figurative works?
I decided to begin illustrating my students using cheap, classroom materials like pens and magic markers. I really liked the aesthetic combination of the fine-line techniques borrowed from miniature painting, and the smoky quality of the dying magic markers I used in my classroom. I took snapshots of my students with my camera-phone, and then started drawing them at home. There were so many interesting idiosyncrasies within the Taiwanese child-culture, that I was given more than enough subject matter to flavor the drawings with. They are a record of my students as I taught them, and that seemed important since they would be so quickly swept away with time.
What do you have on the horizon?
This year I received a grant from the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute to continue studying miniature painting in India in the fall. My exhibition from Taipei will be held at the Jawahar Kala Kendra Gallery in Jaipur, and then I will go back to Canada to do a Masters in Fine Art. I hope to visit Taiwan again soon after that.
Cole can be contacted at coleswanson@gmail.com.
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