A woman with curly hair wearing paint-stained overalls sitting on the floor in an art studio, working on a large canvas with abstract colorful designs and paintings on the wall behind her.

Hi, I’m Tori Swanson.

I’m a Canadian artist living in Portugal.

Working primarily in painting, with an evolving mixed media practice, I explore matrescence, the female figure, and the quiet transformation of becoming. My work reflects on the ways motherhood reshapes identity, inviting us to consider the beauty, complexity, and tenderness of continual change.

Each painting begins as a conversation rather than a plan. Through layered mark-making, abstraction, and gesture, I create spaces that hold both strength and vulnerability, allowing the work to unfold as an exploration rather than a conclusion.

Deeply informed by my own experience of motherhood, my practice is rooted in the belief that transformation is rarely sudden. Instead, it reveals itself slowly—in the body, in memory, and in the everyday moments that quietly shape who we become.