Contemporary Art Website

Contemporary Visionary Artist: Don Michael Swartzentruber [swärt zen trü ber: pronounced phonetically] (b. 1966 Seaford, Delaware) designs carnivalesque images that manifest from interests in theology, cultural issues, and the surreal. He has taught and lectured on the arts for the past ten years. He received an M.F.A in Visual Art from Vermont College of Norwich University and exhibits nationally. The recipient of numerous grants and awards for his instruction and studio practice, he has served as Adjunct Professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and Grace College. His is also a tenured secondary visual art instructor at Warsaw Schools. He creates his enigmatic iconography in the historical Billy Sunday community of Winona Lake, where he resides with his wife and two sons.	Vitae: Click here for Swartzentruber's vitae.
Artist Statement of Purpose: "Archetypes of desire, transgression and repentance are animated within illusionary spaces with an obsessive interest in penetrating high art and popular culture with raw personal liturgy. The inspiration comes from the miniscule ground that spiritual mysticism (metaphysical/eternal) and the carnival-grotesque (physical/finite) overlap. This seemingly incompatible dynamic builds the iconographic structure drifting between invocation, exorcism, sermon, dream and prayer. In the tradition of Bosch and Bruegel, the work avoids thematic boundaries, even when dealing with issues of faith. The themes build from the premise that life is a collection of moments in alienation or union with God. Stylistically the work marries the pop-surreal with visionary art, appropriating environments from sequential art, illustration, desktop publishing and animation as well as the traditional structures of painting, printmaking and the illuminated manuscript. "-DMS
"Swartzentruber Imagination on Display" by Teressa Smith, *Times Union, Cover Story "Welcome to the weird" could be the theme of the most recent LAC exhibit. What's weird-Don Swartzentruber of Winona Lake calls his style pop-surreal-are the images the painter presents for inspection. The artist is used to the term "weird" as well as "strange" and "disturbing" and other words used to describe things that just aren't normal. On exhibit is a very personal, autobiographical show. Swartzentruber uses religious, cultural and sexual icons in a straight-forward manner to present his thoughts on these issues…Titles include, Maternal Sin, Carnal Casino,* and Estrogen…Using ancient and modern symbols, the exhibit stirs up emotions-the ones locked in the belly. In the detailed-filled works, several stories are being told-like a strange conversation. They're surreal, remember. On the other side of the entrance, Swartzentruber tackles the theme of marriage and puts color to the canvases in the "Heterosexual Monogamy" series. "This became an opportunity to explore the mystical, passionate and violent process of two individuals becoming one", he said. In Organically Entwined, a couple is wrapped around and growing together like a lush vine. The only indication something is amiss is the pinched expression on one forest green face. Another work, Flesh of One Flesh two figures face each other with huge open mouths-the better to obsess over and consume one another…The exhibit is one of the most interesting presented by the LAC in a while. It may also be one of the most controversial…It's easy to leave a still-life of flowers behind. Swartzentruber's paintings hover after the viewer who is then left to ascertain these themes alone…Swartzentruber swears he's conservative in his thinking. However. He is explicit in his drawings. Figures dance, twist and gaze out of their settings colored with purple, green and orange skin. Thy may sit on the head of or in the mouth of another creature. …Paint oozes past the usual boundaries just to created new borders…This is where he exorcises his personal demons. Some of the devils are quite apparent. Others are hidden in shadows or shadowed in humor. It's all a sight to see."

Spearing the sideshow icons: Artist depicts our clichéd fantasies
by Evan Gillespie, South Bend Tribune, South Bend, Indiana

In a past solo exhibition, Don Swartzentruber confronted religion. His "Pop-Mennonite" exhibition at Goshen College in 2005 took a critical look at the intersection of Mennonite faith and popular culture via dark, surrealistic compositions. His current show at Spurious Fugitive gallery is, for the most part, secular in nature, and the palette of the paintings is, on the whole, brighter. The artist's tone of playful fantasy -- with an undercurrent of absolute seriousness -- remains intact, however.

"Views From the Sideshow" consists of eight banners, each painted on a large piece of unstretched canvas. Uniformly bright and superficially cheerful, the paintings depict caricatures in the style of a carnival artist. "A Pirate's Heart" presents a scowling, long-haired, saber-wielding pirate and a bikini-clad woman emerging from a treasure chest. "Rock & Roll" features a grinning guitar god in the midst of a solo. "Classic Western" shows a pig-tailed cowgirl being bounced from a bronco as a goofy rattlesnake looks on.

The caricatures in the paintings are the same silly characters -- the pirate, the cowboy, the sports hero, the rock star -- drawn by midway artists for millions of visitors to fairs and amusement parks around the world. Via these iconic tropes, artists can make money easily, and patrons can envision their uniqueness by putting their own faces into clichéd scenes. The universality of these fantasies is underscored in Swartzentruber's paintings by titles rendered in several different languages.

At that level, the banners seem straightforward and light-hearted, a gentle poke at the superficiality of the popular imagination, but as usual with Swartzentruber's work, there is a darker heart in the paintings. On occasion, the darkness rises to the surface: in "Most Valuable Player," a cartoonish football star is tackled by a giant fanged demon; in "Retratos Divinos," a haloed cherub is jabbed in the backside with a pitchfork by an equally cherubic devil; in "Portret Fantasie," a maiden perches on the back of a colossal monster, a horned skull clutched in its taloned fist.

In other paintings, the disturbing notes are more subtle. In "Jungle Love," a fair-skinned Tarzan gazes longingly at a dark-skinned jungle girl -- complete with tattered halter top and a bone in her hair; the racial juxtaposition, so different from the Hollywood version of Tarzan's jungle, hints at distasteful prejudices.

With these paintings, Swartzentruber successfully combines his talent for surrealistic social commentary -- executed with bite and sincerity -- with the garish, yet appealing, colors and forms of the populist carnival.

On exhibit
"Views from the Sideshow" by Don MIchael Swartzentruber continues through Oct. 28 at the Spurious Fugitive, LLC: A Postmodern Gallery, 114 W. Colfax Ave., South Bend. Hours are from noon to 9 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sundays and by appointment. For more information, call (574) 232-2377 or visit the Web site www.spuriousfugitive.com.