Welcome to Dylan Swan’s Art

I paint the places we pass through — cafés, corners, quiet moments.
It’s about noticing what’s already there —

light on a wall, someone waiting,

the pause before moving on.

Welcome to the familiar.

Let’s notice it together.

Cafe Moments

This series began, oddly enough, just as the world was shutting down. One day I was sketching in a crowded café, basking in the simple joy of coffee and muffins. The next, those cozy rituals were sealed behind plexiglass and caution tape. These paintings are my way of processing that shift—part nostalgia, part tribute, and maybe a little bit of coping mechanism. From weary baristas to makeshift café tents, each piece is a snapshot of connection in strange times.

For the full story, check out my blog.

Broken Moment

Tucked behind the easel for years, this painting waited. I saw its promise but it wasn’t ready. Through the slow drip of the eye-dropper, it became what it was meant to be—an echo of fleeting moments. Perhaps the distance from the memory that sparked it made it fracture, beautiful in its imperfection.

“Between” 2022 36inch x 36inch
acrylic on canvas $2,600.

Decisions

One of my first paintings completed after moving out east, Decisions explores the quiet weight of choice. Painted with a dropper technique—playful, unpredictable, and painstakingly slow—it marks a shift toward a looser, more intuitive style. The image is softened and suggestive, yet rooted in a moment that many viewers found familiar. I’ll return to this technique from time to time, but sparingly—its pace demands patience. For now, my focus remains on work with a more familiar rhythm.

“Cafe Takeout” 2021 70inch x 40inch acrylic on canvas $4,600. — “Cafe Takeout” 2021 70inch x 40inch
acrylic on canvas $4,600.

Café Takeout
Inspired by Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère, this piece reimagines that quiet ambiguity in a modern café, mid-pandemic. Plexiglass separates the barista from the customer, but it’s the expression—somewhere between focus and quiet fatigue—that lingers. Painted during a time when café culture felt fragile, Café Takeout captures a fleeting, reflective moment we all lived through.
Part of a small series, this work stands out for its stillness and subtle emotional weight—one of those pieces people come back to.

Please contact the “Crown and Press Gallery” for print options or to inquire about the original.

“Cafe Memories” 2021 44inch x 28inch
acrylic on canvas $2,200.

Café Memories
This piece began as a casual sketch in a local café, drawn in February 2020—just before everything changed. At the time, there were only distant murmurs of lockdowns in China. It wasn’t until those everyday scenes were suddenly off-limits that the sketch took on a new kind of weight.
Café Memories became the first in what turned into a series: paintings that hold onto the warmth, stillness, and quiet rituals of public life. It captures something small but lasting—a glance, a nearness, a kind of care we maybe didn’t realize we were losing.

Please contact the “Crown and Press Gallery” for print options or to inquire about the original.

“Cafe Parking” 2021 32inch x 72inch acrylic on canvas SOLD — “Cafe Parking” 2021 32inch x 72inch
acrylic on canvas SOLD

“Dakery” 2022 24inch x 30inch
acrylic on canvas $900.

For print options or original purchase, please contact the “Crown and Press Gallery”

Bandito

Outside the Paisley Café in Westdale Village a man sits alone with his coffee and bicycle. The “Burrito Bandito” sign quietly becomes part of the composition — and the title. Painted during the era of social distancing, this scene records a familiar solitude that settled into everyday rituals: there’s warmth in the light but a measured space between people. The figure reads like an urban cowboy — present in the city but slightly removed. One of several works made at this café, Bandito reflects how even small, casual corners of life were reshaped by the pandemic.

For purchase information,

please contact the fine folks at:

The Crown & Press Gallery

handle all that with grace and caffeine.

Urban Landscapes

I used to think cities were all noise and chaos—until I started painting them. Turns out, there's a strange charm in crooked alleyways, tilted parking meters, and buildings that have seen better decades. This series captures the quieter, often unnoticed corners of urban life—the spots you'd walk past unless you were lost, nosy, or an artist with a sketchbook and too much time. Think of these as love letters to the scruffy beauty of city living.

A painting depicting a cityscape scene under a bridge with multiple layers of bridge structures overhead. There is a sidewalk along a body of water with people walking and biking, surrounded by lush green trees. Sunlight creates shadows on the ground, and a lamppost stands near the walkway.

This familiar bend along the Hamilton Harbour trail is a favourite for walkers, cyclists, and dreamers alike. Nestled beneath layers of iron and concrete, it offers a moment of calm and shifting light — a brief stillness between shadows and water. It’s one of those places that locals know by feel, where the city breathes a little slower.

You can order prints of this from the

Crown and Press Gallery

“Underbridge” (or “Bridging Desjardins”)

48”x48” Original Sold acrylic on canvas 2022

Painting of a winter landscape featuring a snow-covered area with a small arched bridge over a stream and a large tree with bare branches in the foreground. The sky is a warm, glowing color.

“Buttersky”

32”x72” Original Sold Acrylic on Canvas 2021

This scene from Hamilton’s Chedoke Trail stopped me in my tracks — the low sun turning snow and concrete into gold. The tunnel under the old ski slope felt both familiar and dreamlike in that light.

Person walking on snow-covered sidewalk at sunset, carrying a yellow snow shovel, wearing a dark jacket and hat, with leafless tree and cars parked along the street in the background.

A lone figure walks into the hush of a winter city — dark coat, head down, that classic “this was absolutely my idea” walk. The snow’s doing its best to erase the background, but the figure holds the scene together like punctuation in a pale sentence. This isn’t postcard Canada. It’s Canadian beauty: quiet, grey, and somehow perfect in spite of your frozen eyelashes.

They have all kinds of print options at the

Crown and Press Gallery.

The original is there too.

“Canadian Beauty”

36”x60” $3,600. acrylic on canvas 2022

A painted depiction of a sidewalk at sunset with trees and buildings. A man is walking a dog, with cars parked along the street. The sky is vibrant with pink, orange, and purple hues. A vehicle and other pedestrians are visible in the distance, and a yellow sign reading 'Speed Hump' is on a pole.

“Westbound Charlton”

18”x24” Original Sold Acrylic on Canvas 2021

Charlton was doing its usual thing

—standing there, being a street—

when the sunlight showed up like,

“Let’s make this gorgeous.”

No warning, no permission,

just full glow-up.

I figured the least I could do was paint it.

“University Club” 2020 60inch x 24inch acrylic on canvas SOLD — “University Club” 2020 60inch x 24inch
acrylic on canvas SOLD

New Roots:

East Coast Paintings

In 2022, my wife and I moved to Nova Scotia in search of something quieter — fewer sirens, more trees. We landed in Bridgewater, and I started painting again.

The light here is softer. The pace, slower. It suits the kind of work I do — grounded, local, occasionally painted between lumber runs.

While we build a house in the woods,

I’m painting the places that make this new life feel like ours.