Wesley Swanigan

Wesley Swanigan lives a twenty-minute bike ride from the American River in Carmichael, California. He bikes to the River as often as weather permits, taking photos and studying the landscape so he can portray it in art. The riparian belt along the lower American River is his constant inspiration to bring the outdoors indoors. He won the blue ribbon for his first-place painting in the 2021 Art Exhibit and Action by Effie Yeaw Nature center. Wesley grew up in the California Central Valley. Some of his earliest memories are of being a small child playing along the banks of the San Joaquin River while his father worked nearby

His art career started when his mother gave him a pencil and paper to draw to keep him still in church. He took art class all four years of high school where he won the Bank of America Senior Award for Art. Although he did do some painting, there wasn’t time for daily art until a few years ago. He is a member of the Sacramento Fine Arts Society and the Northern California Arts, Inc. Wesley relates to the Post-Impressionists, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Gaugin, Childe Hassam. They wanted to go beyond impressionism.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is about a girl who thinks life is not worth. The book has a profound conclusion that is meaningful for me. Life can be filled with despair but there are moments of beauty that are shocking. Marcel Proust in In Search of Lost Time, reached the conclusion that art is an attempt to stop time. That’s what I try to do in my own way.