Amy Beager’s Dreamy Paintings Blend Fashion with Fairy Tale
During her time at the CloverMill Artist Residency this past spring, Amy Beager stayed in a converted watermill in the remote Dutch countryside, surrounded by flocks of swans. The image of these elegant creatures living and nesting strengthened the artist’s existing interest in the winged animal. Once back in her studio in England, Beager started researching the symbolism behind these white birds more deeply. Beager was particularly drawn to the tale of the Swan Maiden, in which a mythical creature, able to shapeshift between human and swan forms, is forced to marry a young man who stole her feather garment while she was bathing.
This story is the main inspiration for Beager’s latest solo exhibition and first with Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in London, “Swan Maidens.” The paintings, on view through October 29th, depict sumptuous female and swan forms, often closely intertwined or entangled. With loose, sweeping brushstrokes and a color palette of bright pinks, purples, greens, and reds, Beager creates the impression of a dreamlike, mythical universe.
In Weaving Through a Dream (2022), for example, a green-hued woman mournfully clutches a swan in a close embrace. The pair floats under a towering Grecian archway while surrounded by purple clouds. The bottom of the composition dissolves into pure abstraction with dabs of yellow, white, and red paint marking the pink background. Beager’s process, which the artist describes as experimental, involves building up several layers of color by starting with spontaneous shapes that are then adapted into scenes and narratives. “I aim to create compositions that are dramatic, romantic, and poetic,” she said in an interview with Artsy.
Beager draws on various eclectic sources—from Greco-Roman and Renaissance sculpture to back catalogues of Vogue and vintage erotica—to inform her compositions. For several years, fashion wasn’t just artistic inspiration for Beager, but also her day job. Told by her art and design tutors after high school that she would never make any money as an artist, Beager studied fashion design as an undergraduate at Nottingham Trent University. She went on to work in womenswear for seven years, designing for brands such as Topshop and ASOS.
Since becoming an artist full-time—and proving her teachers wrong with her success—Beager has further developed her practice, exploring varying techniques to create new textures and effects with paint. What unifies all of her works, however, is that emotion lies at their heart. “Fundamentally, my work revolves around feminine power, strength, and fragility, and the dreams and desires of the subject,” she said. Viewers have told Beager that her work has offered them solace in difficult times and even sometimes brought them to tears. Beager’s aesthetic feels firmly rooted in the contemporary moment, but her subject matter—elegantly weaving together love, sex, myth, and death—is timeless.
