Artist Bio – “My Path to Painting” – Exhibitions

Artist Bio

Stephen Lowell Swanberg was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and lived in Boston, Massachusetts, for many years. Mr. Swanberg, a full-time artist, currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. He received degrees in Biological Sciences and Philosophy from Stanford University and in Biochemistry from Harvard University. His overlapping career choices have included:

Molecular Biologist (through 2002)
Research activities: Chemokines and HIV, HCV replication, designer antibodies
Civil Rights Activist (Volunteer, 2004-2010)
Focus: Marriage equality, LGBT civil rights
Violinist
Repertoire: Chamber music, Bach to present day
Painter
Abstract: Acrylic on canvas

My Path to Painting

In the early 1990s, while working both as a scientist and as a musician, I began intensively studying twentieth-century and contemporary art, including abstract expressionist, pop, minimalist, and conceptual art. Living near New York City at the time, I made frequent trips there, soaking up all I could about contemporary art from museums, galleries, and books.

It soon became apparent that learning about art was not enough for me – I strongly felt the need to make art. I chose painting – acrylic on canvas – as my medium. I was drawn to abstract painting, that is, painting with no visual representation of the world outside the painting. It was an exciting time as I developed a personal approach to painting techniques through my interactions with paint, canvas, and variety of painting tools. My first paintings were wild experiments in a variety of styles. Just two of my paintings from the 1990s truly prefigured my current painting style.

Stephen Lowell Swanberg, June 22, 2014

Despite my eclectic tastes, I was increasingly drawn to painters who used apparently minimal means and a limited number of elements to create highly expressive paintings. The works of these artists may illustrate nothing whatsoever concrete in this world – one considers and enters the worlds of just the paintings themselves. These abstract paintings can evoke and communicate a wide variety of emotions and ideas. To me, these works often seem to convey something ineffably expressive at which I can only marvel as I contemplate and enjoy them. All this said, a great deal of time has passed since the emergence of “minimalistic” abstract expressionism. Today, a painting composed with minimal elements – and in itself a visually compelling and expressive object of contemplation – may also unavoidably contain a subtext of commentary on “minimalistic” abstract expressionism or subsequent art movements, or, indeed, it may contain a commentary on a wide range of topics of importance to the painter. Knowledge of this subtext, my “story” as embedded in the painting, can enhance the enjoyment of the work – just as knowledge of the context and objectives of any artist’s work can enhance one’s enjoyment in contemplating and understanding it.

In the early 2000s, I worked towards forming my current and always evolving “language” of painting, experimenting with using minimal elements for expressive effect amid total abstraction. In 2006, I settled upon my current style of painting: the expressive use of rectangles and fields of color and my “signature” format of attaching centrally a smaller, second rectangular piece of canvas to the main stretched canvas, creating, in a sense, windows into abstract worlds. Also in 2006, my paintings began to appear in public.

As I think about artistic goals – such as presenting continually developing and expanding ideas using both old and newly discovered techniques, all within the “constraints” of my chosen format – I find that my overarching goal as a painter is very similar to my goal in musical performance – to have the opportunity to present to an interested audience my artistic ideas and values.

Stephen Lowell Swanberg
© 2013-2018

Exhibitions

2013   Solo Exhibition, Center on Halsted, a nonprofit community resource and advocacy organization, Chicago, IL, “Abstract Paintings: The Expressive Use of Rectangles and Fields of Color”

Corporate Exhibitions
2013-2017   Corporate Loan, Aris Health, a division of Howard Brown Health Center, a nonprofit resource, advocacy, and medical organization, Chicago, IL (23 paintings including a series of 14)
2008-2011   Corporate Loan, Brookline Bank, Needham Heights, MA
2011   Solo Exhibition, Francesca’s, Boston, MA, “Look Out/Look In”
2010   Solo Exhibition, Francesca’s, Boston, MA, “New and Recent Paintings”
2010   Solo Exhibition, Francesca’s, Boston, MA, “New and Recent Paintings”
2008   Solo Exhibition, Francesca’s, Boston, MA, “New Paintings”