Once a documentary photographer, Swarts has recently begun using the internet as a photographic apparatus. Combining photographs of bodies with informational graphics pulled from the Web, Swarts overlays the figurative image with a dense pattern of found graphics. The result is a two-layered image that explores perception and digital information by invoking two ways of seeing.

"I spend an inordinate amount of time collecting strange images from the web. Search engines have become like books to me: I cruise through literally thousands of pictures to download a few I find interesting.

Out of curiosity, I began placing some of these images inside my photographs. At first, they were just pictures inside other pictures, but soon I began using the computer to create 'screens' that 'covered' digital photographs. The screens modulate and complicate the politics of looking, bending and submerging the narrative of the photograph.

On one level, the images here are about memory, desire, and perception. But really, I am simply in love with the way information is rendered by an inkjet printer. With my work I hope to create a layered seduction, drawing the viewer into the image far enough to scrutinize the very surface of the print. There, I believe, the mark making of the machine becomes as mysterious as the world." —Matthew Swarts