Ena Swansea

The painter Luc Tuymans has described this unique effect between the interaction of oil and graphite in Swansea’s work "as if it had corroded through time.”[8] The paintings are high-contrast, with deep blacks, and both vibrant and muted colors.

Both the palette and method of construction have been described as cinematic, privileging formal values over narrative, building and overwriting the image in a labor-intensive process.

Subjects are revisited over many years in a discursive examination of the contemporary world, including paintings of the Macy’s Day Parade and the first Nascar racetrack in North Carolina,[10] still extant but now abandoned in a pine forest.

[12] Critic Belinda Grace Gardner says of Swansea's work, "Her compositions have the evasiveness of dreams or afterimages that briefly manifest themselves on the edges of perception.

[16] Growing up around architectural drawings and models, combined with her parents' 1960s psychedelic posters, and 19th-century woodcuts and engravings, resulted in a unique sensibility and visual heritage.

[38] In 2010, Swansea was selected as the first American artist to produce a “Goyesque” occupying the entire sand floor of the ancient Roman bullfighting arena in Arles.

[39] In 2016, Swansea participated in an invitational exhibition which involved redesigning an Upper East Side apartment, entitled “Be My Guest: The Art of Interiors”, closely collaborating with Mickalene Thomas, Misha Kahn, and five other artists.