An artist and poet who lives in the Old South area of London is combining her love of science and her religious background to create some truly thoughtprovoking work.

Marijo Swick creates images that are sometimes dreamy, sometimes colourful. Some include images of DNA sequences while others show some religious imagery, and many include both. Much of her artwork evokes questions about how one can reconcile religious faith with scientific fact.

Expressing her feelings and thoughts through her art seemed like a natural creative outlet for Swick, who said she grew up in a fairly artistic household. "I've always been painting and drawing and stuff. We had a really creative house; my mom was always painting, drawing and letting us make stuff — we just always were!"

She credited her strict religious upbringing as having a huge impact on her work as an artist. In high school, she enjoyed and was excited by her Biology and Chemistry classes. "When I moved away (from home) and started going to school and figuring stuff out on my own, it built on an interest that had always been there," she said.

"I have a lot of questions about that strict religious dogma, and science can answer a lot more questions in my head, and I can't shake that."

She attended Fanshawe right after completing high school, and graduated from the Graphic Design program in 1987. Three years later, she headed to the University of Western Ontario for Fine Art. Her education there had to be cut short, but the experience was invaluable. "I would have loved to finish, but I couldn't afford it. I had to quit," she said. "I would love to go back to school. I could spend my entire life being a student."

The schools were "very different," she remembered, and gave her two distinct perspectives on how art works and what it means. Her experience at Fanshawe led her to a job in the Graphic Design department at the London Free Press newspaper, where she worked for over 20 years.

Now a full-time artist, Swick uses acrylic paints, coloured pencils, digital elements and sometimes even more unexpected items to create her signature style. She said sometimes she will design a piece on her computer and print it out on rice paper to give it a different look and texture. Her insatiable curiosity has even led her to put leaves through her printer, just to see what happens.

Swick's work has been featured in exhibitions across Canada and the United States, and she has been in many local exhibitions over the years.

Budding artists in London have a wealth of resources available to them — London is a very artistic city — but being an artist is no easy task no matter how art-friendly your city may be. "You have to work a lot. You just have to keep painting. You're going to get a lot of rejection, and you're going to get a lot of (people saying things like)'Don't darken our door,' but you just have to keep doing it all the same," she said.

"Follow whatever your interests are," she added. "Don't just start painting because you think they're going to sell or you think someone else is going to like them. Work for yourself."