Heather B. Swann: The Forests of Symbols

Heather B. Swann has established a formidable reputation as a maker of sculptural objects, ink drawings, and paintings of dark, sensual, and fantastic presence.

The Forests of Symbols is an ambitious new project conceived as the first in a final series to be completed during her lifetime. It brings together newly commissioned and rarely seen works in sculpture, painting, and drawing.

The title serves as a metaphor for knowing the world; indeed, it describes a method. With the senses wide open to the symbolism and allegory present in the limitless phenomena that surround us, ‘The Forests of Symbols’ reminds us that it is our separate and collective human inventions that create our cultural memory. Every little thing could be symbolic.

“I am an artist who sees the world through symbols: not a symbolist but both iconolater and iconoclast. Charles Baudelaire writes about the necessity of the pilgrim-soul to pierce through ‘the forests of symbols’; I believe we are all pilgrims lost within this natural obscurity of things, overwhelmed by images, meanings, impressions. It is a profound description of who, where and how we are.” Heather B. Swann

Curated by José Da Silva and presented as part of Copyright Agency Partnerships, an annual commissioning series for leading Australian artists to develop and present a major new body of work.