Swan Jelly-Bean

Swan Jelly-Bean spent her childhood engrossed in words, art, and nature. She was born in the middle of the longest night of 1960, in Orongomai, Aotearoa. At 7, she moved north with her family to finish her schooling in Tamaki Makaurau. After school, Swan studied architecture, leaving in 1981 to pursue life as an artist. She built a press and made etchings, exhibiting them at various galleries. In 1986 she came to Otepoti and here produced and wrote for an underground magazine. After that she continued drawing and writing, but focused mainly on painting and sculpture, exhibiting her work in group and solo shows. She also did screen-printing on clothes which she sold at a local shop run by herself and three other women. After this, focusing more and more on her drawing led to her becoming a tattooist, which she pursued for 15 years. She worked in a public studio, and various home studios in the places she was renting.

In 2015 she retired into self-imposed isolation. Her mind was overflowing with words, and she spent the next 5 years writing screeds of poems and stories from which she has selected the ones printed here. She also took photos in her neighbourhood and layered and enhanced them on her computer to produce artworks. She continues to write, and photograph the world around her.

Author's Books

You’ll Find Me

We live within the bountiful confines of nature. We live our lives as embodied souls. Our cultures are wound full of stories and myths.This book offers you a unique and tantalising worldview, exploring these ideas with colourful and expressive words and pictures....

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