Swab Barcelona was founded in 2006, based on the initiative of Barcelona's private collection Diezy7 and the support of the gallery owners Leo Koenig (Leo Koenig INC, NY.), Fred Mann (Fred LTD, London) and Marta Moriarty (Vacío, 9, Madrid) The aim of the organizers is to present emergent contemporary art from around the world while also being a platform for a young generation of national and international galleries.  This year they had absorbed 32 galleries from Berlin, New York, Madrid, Copenhagen and more into an eclectic mix.

One of the gallery owners and directors I spoke to was Elizabeth Balogh, the director of Leo Koenig Gallery NY. Elizabeth gave me a brief through the artists they represent, one of them is the Kitsch painter Tom Sanford. Tom Sanford’s work is littered with the icons and detritus of pop culture obsessions. In most of his paintings, these references become a fractal projection of his identity, according to Elizabeth. In his portrait paintings he uses an ironic combination of contemporary celebrities within the familiar formal constraints of various historical painting idioms, like this one: Damien Hirst in a Memento Mori moment.