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Metal artists always seem to be a big mystery when it comes to media publications. Newspapers, magazines and visual media run stories about metal artists because it is more than interesting, it's educational. While many people struggle to understand painting and traditional sculpture, making art with a torch is often an even bigger mystery. Most people relate to metal artists work by imagining sparks flying, hearing hammers and grinding, and then wonder where these beautiful pieces of art come from amidst all the noise. Many of the articles on Michael and his work espouse to what he's said, "I use fire, grinders, hammers and benders. They do at times make a lot of noise, but the silence, when the piece is finally finished, is the loudest noise of all."
Indy.com previews the "Act 3" Gallery Opening - Click Here to read it!
Excerpt from a review of the 2008 Stutz Open House, by Daniel Andrew Young:
I attended the Stutz Art Gallery tour on Friday night. I arrived late, but the event ran until 11:00 p.m., so I had about eighty minutes to take in what I could. It was fast, furious, fun and fascinating. I want to comment on the artists and the work that impressed me the most.
Top Honors on my list went to metal sculptor Michael Swolsky (Studio B355). He has created works in metal that are beyond imaginative, making shapes, surface textures, and colors come together in works that are richly complex assemblages, many of which are made to be hung on a wall and viewed from one side, though others are free-standing, to be viewed in the round. I spoke to the artist first about a piece on the wall called, “Symmetry.” It was an assemblage of rectangular metal boxes of various sizes, on a pipe-work frame. He pointed out that the metals were brass, copper, and steel, each in its characteristic color. Box segments had been burnished on the surface with looping striations or angular striping, and those on the left were matched with markings going the opposite direction on the right, establishing the symmetry. He had also heat-treated some copper panels, bringing out more color variations, and had, by some method, infused many of the panels or box fronts with what I can only describe as peacock-tail eyes.
Swolsky had numerous other, spectacular works. He did some interesting structural things using horse-shoe nails welded together like four-pointed stars, and two wall-pieces representing trees, with well-realized branches and roots. He had one 3-D sculpture consisting of copper boxes and panels pierced in parallel strips, so the openings were as much a part of the work as the structures that remained. The most obvious eye-catchers are his constructions using a conglomeration of similar, curving shapes in many colors and visual textures. To describe the shapes used in this category of work (he has done several in a similar vein), I called them “distorted guitar-pick” shapes, though that doesn’t do them justice. If you have not seen Swolsky's work, I strongly recommend it. Grade: A+
Read the entire review by clicking here.