@SuperchiefGalleryNFT proudly presents "Cicada and Tymbal", a solo exhibition of stop-motion animated videos and stills that are available as NFTs by contemporary artist and activist @Swoonhq opening on Saturday, July 17th and on view through Thursday, July 22nd, 2021.

This exhibition, which serves as Swoon's debut solo outing with the gallery, takes the viewer on an immersive visual voyage into the artist's personal history with works that intertwine images from memory and mythology to signify metamorphosis and healing.

In 2020, Swoon marked a new development in her practice with the debut of Cicada, a stop-motion film that emphasizes the body’s ability to serve as a vessel carrying memories and traditions. Open-ended stories unfold and weave recurring motifs such as birth, divination, trauma, and healing

Imagine a cicada buried underground for over a decade. It seems lost in the darkness, but incredible changes are happening. It is, in its own time, readying itself for a new life. Recall to mind a time when you experienced a great change or transformation. A time when you healed from something you imagined you would never get over, or surprised yourself by discovering a hidden talent. Were you confused while the changes were happening? Did you wonder where you were going and who you would be when you got there? Was there an aspect of yourself that seemed to have faith in the process all along?

In this scene from Cicada, titled "Hecate Skecate", dawn breaks over a pink and white dollhouse like home, causing the home and its residents to shift and awaken. The home splits open to reveal a childlike scene with Raggedy Ann at its center, but, all as not well. A spider drops from the rafters of the attic delivering a bite to Raggedy Ann, which causes her too to open, revealing the Tarantula Mother that she carries inside her body. As a series of hands emerge from within to silence the protagonist, a further transformation occurs, whereby the demon like presence of the Tarantula Mother consumes Raggedy Ann in her entirety. As night falls we hear the refrain “There’s a black spot in my mind, there’s a white spot in my mind” which points to dissociative lapses in consciousness associated with such overwhelming fears as those evoked by the Tarantula Mother. When dawn again breaks over the house, we see both the tormented Raggedy Ann and the entire house being cocooned in the transformative white gauze of the Witch Hecate in her maternal aspect. Another dawn brings another transformation, and we see Hecate turning the wheel that activates change and growth. As moths and other wing like forms overtake the wheel we directly encounter a mother in the throes of giving birth. The house closes for a final time as night descends.

Bio: Caledonia Dance Curry, known professionally as Swoon, is a Brooklyn-based artist. She is widely known as the first woman to gain large-scale recognition in the typically male-dominated world of street art. Callie was born in New London, Connecticut in 1977, and grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida. She began taking drawing classes at age ten, and credits learning to paint with saving her from familial patterns of substance abuse and addiction. Callie took to the streets of New York while attending the Pratt Institute of Art in 1999, pasting her paper portraits to the sides of buildings with the goal of making art and the public space of the city more accessible.

Although Swoon worked under the cover of night, the art world soon took notice of her intricate, visceral portraits, which shone from the sides of buildings all over New York City. In 2004, she was contacted simultaneously by influential gallerist Jeffrey Deitch, and The Museum of Modern Art, and soon began exhibiting her work in galleries and museums globally. With her immersive installation, Swoon: Submerged Motherlands, Callie became the first living street artist to show work at the Brooklyn Museum. Most recently, she transformed the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center with her two-floor solo show, “The Canyon,” which documented the arc of her career from guerilla artist to international sensation.

Today, Callie lives in Brooklyn where she continues to explore and raise awareness through her creative process. Her work can be found on the sides of buildings and streets worldwide and has been given both permanent and transient homes in more classical institutions, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, LA MOCA, Mass MoCA, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Tate Modern, and the São Paulo Museum of Art.