Paul Swenbeck

Paul Swenbeck combines sculpture, painting, and photography to create installations that filter craft, occult, and spiritual themes through his own idiosyncratic perspective. Swenbeck grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the witch trial hysteria of Colonial America. Recently, Swenbeck has begun exploring the world of ancient flora, fashioning fantastic plants in ceramic, evoking the work of Wisconsin self-taught artist Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. Swenbeck's works are in the West Collection, Oaks, Pennsylvania and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Shaker Legend-Trip, Fleisher/Ollman (2010) and Specter of the Brocken, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2004). Group exhibitions include Earth and Alchemy, Bakalar and Paine Galleries, Massachusetts College of Art (2012) and Dirt on Delight: Impulses that Form Clay, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and travelled to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, (2009). Swenbeck graduated with a degree in ceramics from Massachusetts College of Art in 1991.

Courtesy of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery