Paired down palette and simplified composition coupled with the use of precious metal leaf are the hallmarks of Thomas Swanston's Migration series. Swanston exhibits regularly in galleries in Boston, Atlanta, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Santa Fe and with art consultants across the country. He has had thirteen solo and forty-six group gallery exhibitions, has been included in eigth museum exhibitions and published in over fifty trade and lifestyle magazines. Swanston's work has been placed in public and private collections in the US, Europe, China, Korea, Mexico and the Caribbean. In my current body of paintings, the overarching theme of migration carries a multitude of connotations; most notably, migration speaks to the mystical movement through space and time, from one location to another and the ultimate return home. The recurring patterns of sandhill crane migrations remind us of nature’s ability to renew and revive itself, rhythmically changing, yet remaining stable and consistent through the seasons. Such is also the human life, changing with each year and each generation. Like migratory birds, physical and spiritual travelers alike explore new or familiar places, always to return to the one special locale that they call “home.” In their seasonal trips from North to South and then back, and in their victorious return from near extinction back into the cycle of life, sandhill cranes remind the viewer that all journeys have a purpose and an end, no matter how long they might be or how far away from home they may take us.
