Artists

Ruby Swinney is a painter who lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2015. Swinney thins down oil paint in monochromatic colour which she uses on silk and tracing paper, creating dreamlike supernatural images of gently blurred human figures in ageless landscapes. Many of her paintings include religious iconography which transport the viewer away from the everyday world and into a spiritual state of consciousness. Swinney’s ethereal images address her deep concerns about nature and the ecological world, and the precariousness and uncertainty of human existence.

Ruby Swinney has participated in a number of solo exhibitions including those with WHATIFTHEWORLD and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Arts Africa (MOCAA) in Cape Town, and with AKINCI Gallery in Amsterdam. She has also participated in several group exhibitions throughout South Africa and Europe, including the Joburg and Cape Town Art Fairs between 2016 and 2018, and at the Redbull Hangar 7 in Salzburg in 2020.

Ruby Swinney’s work is represented in various private and public collections, including the Zeitz MOCAA and the M & C Saatchi Abel collections.