Ghost town with No Ghosts

Jeremy Swales, Ghost town with No Ghosts, 2024, Synthetic Polymer on canvas, 35.5 x 46cm,

Ghost Town with No Ghosts tells the tale of a village once alive with people who frightened themselves with stories of spirits and shadows. They whispered about ghosts in the mountains, in the fields, and even in their own homes, until the fear grew so loud it drove them away.

But the ghosts were never real. What lingered was not haunting, but possibility. With the people gone, the land has healed and flourished. Gardens overflow, rivers run bright, and animals wander freely through streets once lined with human footsteps. The goats climb the hills, the birds nest in the rooftops, and the earth hums with its own quiet life.

In Jeremy’s vision, the ghost town is not a place of loss but of return. Nature has taken back what was always hers.

Ghost town with no ghosts was a finalist in the Gosford Art Prize.