Adam Swanson Mural Project

Artist Adam Swanson standing with armed crossed in front of his painting of a fox

© Adam Swanson

October 20–22 and 27–29, 2020 | Main Gallery

Tweed Museum is teaming with artist Adam Swanson on a mural project intended to increase art engagement with UMD students. Students will be involved in the design of the four-panel mural and will have the opportunity to participate in the painting of the mural. The project will take place in the newly-designated contemporary artist section of Tweed’s main gallery. A presentation by Swanson on his work, as well as class visits, will be included.

Adam Swanson is a painter and muralist fascinated by the way science fiction posits a future for humanity that is changed by major environmental changes and technological innovations. His invented landscapes ask viewers to consider unfamiliar places, such as the lines between true and false, fiction and documentation, natural growth and urban development. He paints wild animals and scientific equipment to create poignant and sometimes humorous tensions between humans and the natural world.

Swanson spent years working in Antarctica with the National Science Foundation where he developed his knowledge of important climate related experiments. He’s a member of the Twin Ports Art Science Collaborative. His work has been influenced by researchers from Lake Superior and the SPRUCE climate change project in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Swanson’s been commissioned to paint a number of public murals in Minnesota that engage neighborhoods and visitors. His work on a series of jury-selected murals for the Ramsey County Courthouse was an important opportunity for Swanson to share his research on Minnesota’s history in order to re-interpret the John Norton murals (1931-32) and connect with the state’s environmental activist communities.

Swanson lives and paints full-time in the woods of northern Minnesota. He is married and a father of two. As a Minnesotan, many of Adam’s mural paintings are sited in the state.

Adam Swanson is a painter and muralist fascinated by the way science fiction posits a future for humanity that is changed by major environmental changes and technological innovations.