Ava Swift is an artist whose work is guided by a deep trust in the transformative power of images. Informed by Jungian and depth psychology, archetypal symbolism, and mystical sensibilities, Ava brings the conscious and unconscious into generative dialogue as she bows in reverence to the imagination. Her alchemical approach tends the space between spirit and matter, attuning to the wisdom of the earth and our earthen bodies. 

Using charcoal, oils, encaustics or cold wax, she includes organic materials of ash, clay, rose, or stone in her work. Through spontaneous, gestural drawings, her process unfolds into layering and scraping across the history of the work, concealing or revealing new images as they emerge. Dancing between play and devotion, Ava engages the creative process in acts of communion and kinship with the wild and deep psyche.

Ava is also a psychotherapist, and archetypal astrologer. Her therapeutic practice is rooted in the same quality of listening that animates her art: a patient attunement to body and breath, to dreams and longing, tending whatever emerges. Her path into depth psychology, astrology, and artistic practice has been, at its core, a path of reclamation: learning to revere the body as a sacred site of wisdom, honor the creative imagination as essential to human life, and connect to the Earth as a living source of belonging. These practices weave themselves through her being. A gift, to image, to body, to Earth.

Ava is a recipient of the 4 Culture 2024 Cultural Producers Recovery Grant.

To contact Ava, please email info@avaswift.com.