The Artists
Meet Ruth Swain and Paul Starns, the award-winning artists behind "Facing the Future".
Ruth Swain
Ruth Swain is an award-winning artist, which she is very proud of, but she much prefers it when people look at her art and leave with a smile on their face.
Her art career started at age 7 when she won a large box of paints and a 5-line write-up in the Witney Gazette. And even though she probably did a wonderful colouring job, she attributes her success here to her Mum’s clever pun. (Which you should definitely ask her about!)
Local fame persuaded her to carry on painting so she spent a lot of her time as a teenager painting pop stars from magazines. Her painting of David Essex and The Boomtown Rats was a particular favourite.
Ruth went on to study Graphic Design at Bristol Polytechnic and ended up working as an Art Director for an advertising agency. Originally, she was working in London until she moved to Hong Kong, where she finally changed career and decided to become a portrait painter. She started out by painting watercolour portraits of children.
When she returned to the UK, she set out to become a ‘proper artist’ so she decided to return to art school. This time around studying Fine Art (Contemporary Portraiture) at The Art Academy London and graduated in 2021.
She now spends most of her time painting in her studio in Oxford, doing undertaking commissions, working on projects, entering exhibitions, and trying to get humour and the occasional visual pun into her work. Anyone would think she used to work in advertising!
Her CV is available on request.
Paul Starns
Paul Starns is not an award-winning artist. Well, nothing major anyway. No Turner Prize, no Ondaatje Gold Medal, no Blue Peter Badge. Occasionally, people are kind & complimentary and they’ll say something nice about his work, but the trophy cabinet remains pretty bare.
He was not allowed to study art at school. “No, you’ll do proper A-levels”, said Mr Trewella. Perhaps if his housemaster had been less of a philistine, things may have turned out differently. Paul might now be a titan of the art world, collecting glittering prizes & adulation wherever he went… but it was not to be.
Following his retirement from business a few years ago he decided to go back to school & belatedly start his art education by studying for a Foundation Degree in Contemporary Portraiture at the Art Academy London. He graduated in 2021 & since then he has undertaken a few commissions, shown in the odd exhibition & now splits his time between his easel & the golf course… where he hasn’t won any prizes either.