My name is Dominique Swift.

I'm a visual artist and I'm from Philadelphia, PA.

I've always been into art.

I don't really see art as separated by mediums like acting versus singing versus painting.

So I said those three because I've done all those three.

So I think my first introduction into art was through acting and singing, and then I just started painting as a way to express the emotions that I couldn't put into words all the time.

I've always been told not just me, but artists in general have been told that like trying to pursue art as a career is pursuing a life of struggle.

But in my later years as a young adult, I have come to realize that it's not a struggle, it's more of a hustle.

And I like to say I've always had that mindset coming from Philly.

It's not opportunities that you're that are being put in your hand.

It's like what you make of them.

So I came back to Pittsburgh after college, so I had about almost a year being back in Philadelphia, but I wasn't pursuing art.

Since being in Pittsburgh, I found that the art scene here is actually very collaborative.

While I was in school, I didn't know there was an art scene.

I thought it was an art desert.

Once you start to like, network and get out of your comfort zone, you find that there's a lot of people that are willing to support what you do and people want it to become a hub.

Like you go to the New Yorks and you go to the LAs, and even maybe Atlantas and Miami, and that's where you think is the only place where opportunity is, like meant to be nurtured and you're meant to be nurtured as an artist.

But I'm finding the people in Pittsburgh want that just as bad, and they want to do it in the place that they came from.

They don't want to necessarily have to move away to pursue their dreams.

So I think that's what everyone is after right now in terms of a goal.

So it seems like there's a lot of momentum here, and people are just trying to find where they fit in.

My style of art is not a specific style, but it is a specific message.

I started creating art because I wanted to be a media producer, whether that's through ads or through paintings.

I wanted to find a way to create the representation that I wanted to see in the world.

So I create art from a space not where I'm like trying to stick to a specific style, but that that same mission.

That's what my art is about.

It's about creating art from a space where I'm trying to fill in the gap between institutional archives and our lived experiences, and trying to, like, nurture that space in between that validates what our personal and our communal memory is.

Because as people of color, we don't often have written archives.

So the way we pass on things are through our senses and not just like sight and smell and hearing, but also like what we imagined.

So that's like what I want to create art from, like trying to make what might feel ordinary to people.

Something that celebrated the piece behind me is meant to depict a scene that I remember from my childhood in Philly, where we would have block parties, and I used to go outside with my friend and we would play with chalk on the ground, and we would also catch fireflies in places like Philly and Pittsburgh that are like populated in a dense way.

There is overdevelopment of land, so the fireflies can't find each other anymore.

So I drew a parallel between like fireflies as like a fleeting memory and like a fleeting archive for black people.

But also another reason fireflies can't find each other is because of light pollution.

We have all these artificial sources of light, and it makes things that are naturally brilliant not seem as brilliant.

And to me, that also speaks to communities of color.

Philly, where we're being over gentrified and we're not getting the resources that we need to sustain.

And people also don't have the same respect for people that they used to have, where block parties arent the normal thing anymore because people don't feel safe.

So I'm like trying to paint that memory to cement it for myself.

But also to remind myself that at some point it existed.

Like the fireflies existed, me running down the street and not being worried about anything.

That was a moment that existed.

So again, art is just a way for me to memorialize something that I may not have access to anymore.

So I'm just trying to continue to build up like that cultural integrity.

So I don't run out of things to say through my art, but I hope that I still have the privilege to be creative.

The art that I started making when I was young was not for other people, it was for me.

So I think if you continue to create out of that mindset, it will already be authentic and there's already a place for you in the market because no one else has your exact perspective.

It's not about like me being in competition with anyone.

It's a cliché thing.

I'm in competition with myself.

And how can I authentically be myself today in a way that I'm not comparing myself to who I was two years ago.

You can connect with me on Instagram.

Domino effect artistry.

And also, at my emailed a domino effect artistry at gmail.com