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20 | October 7, 2020 | MALIBU SURFSIDE NEWS LIFE & ARTS
malibusurfsidenews.com
Guerin Swing
comes full circle
POSTED TO malibusurfsidenews.com
3
DAYS AGO
From street art to
high-end design
and back, he’s
making the most
of the strange new
order.
SCOTT STEEPLETON, Editor
For all its heartache,
the pandemic has led a lot
of people to turn their attention
inward, to assess
where they are and perhaps
chart a new course to
where and who they want
to be.
Guerin Swing, a wellknown
name in the Malibu
arts scene, is doing just
that as he explained during
a recent interview with
Malibu Surfside News.
Whether it’s creating
unforgettable corporate
spaces, doing commission
artwork for private clients
including rockers Tommy
Lee and Slash, or helping
a company with branding,
the 50-year-old Beverly
Hills native, who’s been
steeped in art since the
fourth grade at The Buckley
School in Sherman
Oaks, has been successful
as can be in just about everything
he does. (A painting
of fish he did early on
made it all the way to the
White House.)
A hyperactive boy who
painted all day, couldn’t
sit still and didn’t fit in,
Swing eventually excelled
in all the arts. He landed
a job as the assistant art
director for Screamers,
an L.A. rock magazine in
1987. He moved into street
art, commercial art and
later design and decorative
painting, the latter being
quite lucrative ventures.
Along the way, he’s
done off-road motorcycling,
modeling and surfing,
including helping kids
with special needs and
disabilities catch waves
through a Ventura-based
nonprofit called A Walk on
Water.
He’s also worked with
some of street art’s biggest
names, including his new
collaboration with Kelly
“RISK” Graval on paintings
featuring the Hindu
deity Ganesh (an image
that Swing has used for
decades).
All this requires energy,
and Swing’s would put
that of people half his age
to shame.
The father of three —
4-year-old Seven, 16-yearold
Scout, and 29-year-old
Charlie McMullen — has
also been known as a
workaholic.
“If you asked, ‘Want to
go to the North Shore and
go surf for a week?’ I’m
like, yes,” he said at the
North Hollywood home of
Guerin Design Inc.
“At the same time, (I’d
be) sick to my stomach.”
Strange as it may seem,
the lockdown changed all
that.
“All we hear is, ‘Don’t
leave the house! You’re
having a time out!’ I’m
like, now what?”
Swing with a print of Robbie Conal’s “Gag me with a coat hanger.” It was a gift from
Conal’s guerilla volunteers after a chance meeting late one night in Hollywood when
Swing was just 18.SCOTT STEEPLETON/SURFSIDE NEWS PHOTOS
The answer for the design
business was to cut
back on decorative painting
and doing more FF&E:
furniture, fixtures and
equipment.
For Guerin Swing the
artist, the answer was coming
full circle, in a sense,
to the imagery, if not the
shenanigans, of his earlier
days.
“I’ve kind of just taken
my regular style that I’ve
been doing and put both
my street art and a more
contemporary, personal art
together and look what’s
happened.”
What’s happened? He’s
busy as can be in a way
that doesn’t bring on the
previous anxiety.
“It’s actually been the
greatest thing that’s ever
happened to me, to actually
have time to have a
time out, or do something
that you’ve always wanted
to do.”
Think fine art with a
graffiti bent — and without
the politics of, say, a
Plastic Jesus or Sabo, two
L.A. artists whose sensibilities
run liberal and
conservative, respectively.
“I’ll be honest. I believe
in both sides. We’re so divided
right now, especially
on social media — especially
on Facebook — you
see one side that’s saying,
‘I like this guy’ and the
other side is just attacking
him,” Swing explained.
“So what I’ve seen, and
I’m kind of illiterate on
this, is that … you’re not
really talking about the political
agendas.”
“When you talk about
Republicans and Democrats,
I like both,” he said.
He chuckles at people’s
assumptions of him.
“People always say to
me, ‘Oh, you’re an artist,
so you must be a Democrat,”
he said. “Then I’m
like, well, I like guns. ‘Oh,
he must be a Republican.’
I like a little bit of everything.
And I think from
talking to a lot of people,
that’s the way it is.”
“The reason I stay away
from political stuff is I just
don’t think I’m personally
informed enough to go and
put my mark everywhere.”
He may stay away from
political art, but Swing
has respect for some of
the biggest names in the
genre, including his favorite,
Robbie Conal,
who started papering Los
Angeles with his guerilla
art in the 1980s. Swing
bumped into Conal’s volunteer
army late one night
and was hooked.
Such is his passion for
Conal’s work that on the
wall in the main hallway
at Guerin Design hangs a
print of Conal’s “Gag me
with a coat hanger,” featuring
the likeness of former
Supreme Court Justice
William Rhenquist in the
artist’s signature gnarled
style.
“I got this when I was
18,” Swing said pointing
to the piece. “I was walking
in Hollywood and they
were putting them up. I
was walking on Franklin
and I’m like, ‘Hey, what
are you guys doing?’ I
knew about “Contra Diction”
(a 1988 Conal piece
featuring President Reagan)
and I was like, ‘Can
I have one of those? Can I
help you guys?’”
They obliged and gave
him one.
While the message at the
time escaped him — “I was
a kid. I didn’t even know
who William Rhenquist
was,” he said, the Guerin
Swing of 2020 takes in
“Gag me” and says, “This
guy’s tracking.”
Impressed as he was
with Conal’s work way
back when, Swing didn’t
go the route of using a lot
of words in his art. “I am
the worst speller,” he said
with a laugh. “I’m not
worried about the message,
I’m worried about
technique. I’d make the
C like bitchin’, then I’m
like A, O and then I’m
like, ‘Oh, God … I spelled
‘coat’ wrong!”
Nor did he take any great
interest in doing the spraypaint
graffiti art that a lot
of his friends were doing.
“I’ll be honest with
you. I looked at graffiti
as a waste,” Swing said,
knowing how some would
take offense to that way of
thinking. “To me, it’s like,
you’re going to take spray
paint, spend long-term
doing art that potentially
could be buffed over?”
Instead, he’d use quarts
of paint to “attack” billboards
— and his favorite
target was any featuring
Angelyne, of which there
were many.
“Angelyne, back then,
Please see SWING, 23