Swan Fight

“In 'Swan Fight', form unravels into feeling — a map of gestures, echoes, and whispered thoughts.”

“Swan Fight” is one of those titles that emerged after the painting did. I hadn’t set out to paint birds, or aggression, or movement. But once the piece took form—layered with sweeping arcs, friction lines, and a submerged grid beneath it all—it became impossible not to feel the collision of grace and force.

This oil-on-canvas work measures 60 inches square. I used twine again as my brush—a raw, flexible tool that resists control. Pulled across the surface, it created a language I could feel more than plan. Sometimes it dragged like a wing in water. Sometimes it snapped like a tendon. The twine carries with it a kind of velocity that doesn’t wait for perfection.

Beneath the flowing strokes lies a rigid grid, hand-drawn and partially erased. That tension between structure and release—between containment and eruption—is at the heart of Swan Fight. The grid felt like a cage, or a stage. And over it, the brushwork became an event: erratic, looping, almost like choreography. This isn’t a painting of swans, but of what their flight—or their clash—might leave behind.

What I love most is that nothing is still here. Even in its stillness, the painting hums. The grid buckles under the motion. The oil smears like wind across water. And the viewer is left to decide: Is this a fight? A dance? A storm? Or just a record of energy that passed too quickly to name?

“Swan Fight” is a tribute to that ambiguity—the moments when elegance fractures, when beauty resists, when instinct overtakes composition. It’s about how we move when we’re not trying to look graceful. And how, sometimes, the result is more honest than we expected.