Swoon has been an artist of empathy perhaps even before contemporary really stood face-to-face about what empathy in art looks like. She's an iconic force in storytelling, both about her own life and the people she encounters. Her impact on street art was just that: how do we tell stories to even the casual passerby? And then for her to expand that vernacular to installations, museums, fine art and philanthropy will be why she is in the history books. 

It seems apt that Swoon's solo show Wholeness in Mind will be on view at Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe, a region of American art that celebrates the combination of folk and contemporary traditions. The exhibition fits into a 30th anniversary celebration for the gallery, and that Swoon fits into their programming goes to show just how much her work has crossed over into American tradition in the 21st century. The reimagining and recurrence of imagery in her works is of vital importance, iconography that grows with repetition and reapplication. We come to know these faces and bodies, and see them as stories that we encounter. 

"Her work has become known for marrying the whimsical to the grounded, often weaving in slivers of fairy-tales, scraps of myth, and a recurring motif of the sacred feminine," the gallery states. Mythmaking and fairy tales are the things we carry with us for eras. Swoon continues to be the author of those moments in our art world experiences. —Evan Pricco