This Summer I Went Swimming (@this_summer_i_went_swimming) is the Instagram handle of Guernsey-based, lino-print artist Ben Farmer. Originally from the UK, Ben, along with his wife and 2 children, moved to Guernsey in search of a safer and more whole-some environment in which to raise their young family in. Having sold-up their house in England, and with no ties or family in Guernsey, in fact having never once set foot on the island, they moved lock-stock-and-barrel to this curious and unique rock in the middle of the English Channel. They found themselves in a place not quite French, not quite English; a place of outstanding natural beauty but also deeply impacted by hundreds of years of fortification and war; a place of superstition and tradition but with its own take on modernity. It is this juxtaposition of identity that inspires the artwork of This Summer I Went Swimming.

Ben being a self-taught artist, had ideas of becoming an architect whilst at school and it is these interests in the concepts of the ‘Severe’ and ‘Brutalist’ that he draws upon to create his lino-prints today. Blocks of colour, sharp lines, and hard edges, softened by natural and organic forms is what Ben strives to represent in his work, as a reflection of the Guernsey landscape. Inspired by Bretagne lino-print artists in style, Ben uses uniquely Guernsey scenes to conjure memories and feelings of time and place. In fact, the name of This Summer I Went Swimming serves to capture an atmosphere of looking back fondly on shared memories and experiences, and of the good times spent with those that mean the most.

It is with this in mind that he and Island Life Wines have collaborated to produce an experience solely and unmistakably- Guernsey.