Brooklyn Street Artist Swampy Pounds a Path in Atlanta Wilderness

by Jayne McGinn
images by Jenna Duffy

Swampy’s signature characters form a narrative, a new dimension slowly being built inside our own. The skull and tusks are representative of a feral human; a person who, after being released into the wild, changes like an emancipated domestic pig transforms back into a boar by growing tusks and long hair.

Swampy (© Jenna Duffy)

The trademark crystals in Swampy’s paintings function on different levels. Not only are the crystals aesthetically pleasing, but also representative of the untainted minerals that make up animals forming into a shapes so beautiful, it’s astonishing that they could occur naturally in this world.

Swampy (© Jenna Duffy)

In person, Swampy seems less like someone who paints characters representing purity and extraordinary beauty and more like one of these characters, someone whose exceptional integrity is so remarkable that a natural existence is almost unfathomable.

Almost.

Swampy (© Jenna Duffy)