Drawn to the power of sensory memory, Charlotte Swiden’s Portals explores the fleeting glimpses that open doors and windows in the mind, allowing us to slip through time. Her paintings linger in those small openings, the scents, sounds and tastes that shift perception and gently peel back the layers of everyday life, inviting us to see through nostalgia’s rose-coloured light.

Portals invites us to move through these openings into elsewhere, where memory, emotion and time merge, honouring what fades and celebrating what remains.

"Portals in our minds let us slip through time. I am drawn to the things that flip hidden switches in us and shift our perception, even just for a moment. A scent, a piece of music, a taste, something that instantly carries us to another place. Whispers that pull back the curtains of the everyday, or hand us nostalgia’s rose-coloured glasses. I have been reflecting on our connection to this sensory travel, and pondering if it deepens as we begin to build our own nests, our own families.


More and more, I find myself caught by sudden pangs of memory: harvesting in mormor’s fruit garden, cooking meals from home, the sound of swallows, the scent of my mother’s washing powder lingering in a blanket. Seemingly ordinary objects become vessels of transport. In an instant, I am in Sweden and Australia at once, holding the past and present in a single breath.


Painting, for me, is another way of reaching through these portals, small openings into elsewhere, where I can savour and linger in these moments. A way of holding onto what slips, and honouring what stays."

Charlotte Swiden

Charlotte Swiden (b. 1980, Sweden) moved to Australia in 2005, settling in Melbourne/Naarm. With a background in art, she worked in design before returning to painting following a ten year hiatus and the birth of her second child. Drawing on reflections of her Scandinavian upbringing alongside her Australian home, Swiden’s practice is shaped by the interplay of two identities, two cultures and the tensions that lie between them. In this space she weaves themes of ritual, folklore and modern life, depicting the quiet intricacies of the human experience.

Charlotte Swiden currently lives and works on Boonwurrung (Bunurong) land. Saint Cloche proudly represents Charlotte Swiden.


Instagram.com/charlotteswiden

Charlotte Swiden

Charlotte Swiden (b. 1980, Sweden) moved to Australia in 2005, settling in Melbourne/Naarm. With a background in art, she worked in design before returning to painting following a ten year hiatus and the birth of her second child. Drawing on reflections of her Scandinavian upbringing alongside her Australian home, Swiden’s practice is shaped by the interplay of two identities, two cultures and the tensions that lie between them. In this space she weaves themes of ritual, folklore and modern life, depicting the quiet intricacies of the human experience.

Charlotte Swiden currently lives and works on Boonwurrung (Bunurong) land. Saint Cloche proudly represents Charlotte Swiden.


Instagram.com/charlotteswiden