Swoon, born Callie Curry, crafts life-size wheatpaste prints and cut-paper portraits that imbue dead urban spaces with fleeting voodoo charms. The street artist, born in Florida and based in Brooklyn, begins by creating realistically rendered portraits, often of women from around the world, delicate as doilies while communicating undeniable resilience. Turning the urban jungle into a democratized public gallery, Swoon plasters her folk-inspired visions on abandoned walls and city streets, allowing her urban goddesses to interact with the various manifestations of movement, shadow and decay that come with the habitat. Over the past 15 years Swoon has transformed New York City into a public performance piece, each of her images fully coming to life only when activated by a new pedestrian passerby. Where the urban meets the ethereal, and tenacity meets fragility, where a biker’s shadow can completely transform a cut-paper portrait for only a matter of seconds, this is the world Swoon so generously creates.

Click HERE for the artist’s CV.

PBS American Portrait: Swoon: The House Our Families Built 

Brooklyn Museum: Swoon: Submerged Motherlands

Forbes: New York Street and Installation Artist Swoon Uses Humanity as Her Most Powerful Tool