Biography

Swenson has shown internationally at galleries and museums such as the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles,[3] the Villa Stuck in Munich, and was included in the 2004 Biennial Exhibition of the Whitney Museum of American Art [1] in New York. He held an exhibition in 2012 at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, running from April 14,[4] the first solo exhibition there by a Dallas artist.[1] Swenson is known for his urethane resin recreations of creatures in death or distress.[5] I Am What I Isn't, from 2017, is an example of the artist's finely detailed sculptures made entirely from cast urethane resin and acrylic paint. Some of his creatures are displayed in elaborate dioramas. Swenson's scenes often involve fabricated animals like deer, sheep, and apes captured frozen in allegorical moments. Inspired by museum exhibits and model making, Swenson's tableaux conjure the Romanticism of Caspar David Friedrich and the imagery of wintry Bavarian fairy tales.