Messenger Boy

Out of chaos springs beauty when it comes to illustrator and graffiti artist Swoon. “The things that drew me to [New York City] are its intensity and its harshness.”

A Florida native, Swoon illustrates her large-scale evocative portraits and with the occasional help of a small army of volunteers, cuts away until just the curves of humanity show. Using wheat paste, Swoon tags her drawings onto the gritty cityscape she now calls home. Each tag is more detailed than the next, yet the end result is the crystal clear vulnerability of her subjects. Swoon’s art leaps off of the most derelict structures, and beyond her tags, Swoon has sailed rogue flotillas to Venice and built beehive-like shelters in Haiti for earthquake victims.

See Swoon in Park Slope, Brooklyn, speaking to Walrus TV:

Interview with Gothamist, Swoon shares her obsession with outsider art and giving back to communities.