[citation needed] He is a contemporary American artist whose notably hand-made work is brings together formal preoccupations and references to personal history and identity conflict.
[1] As art critic David Velasco notes, "Swanson is an automythologist, one who excels in crafting sparkling, enigmatic totems from the messiness of his own history; there kitsch and confession dovetail to reveal, not obscure, visceral thirsts.
"[2] His work was the subject of a one-person exhibition at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, at Cornell University, in 2008, and the accompanying catalogue was published in 2009, with an essay by Bill Arning.
He did not feel totally at home in either place, and he began making crystal-covered deer head sculptures as a way to explore, both physically and spiritually, the duality of masculine identities he was experiencing.
[8] Artists to have been awarded this commission in previous years include Kara Walker, Jim Hodges, Vik Muniz, Christian Marclay, Takashi Murakami, Yinka Shonibare, and Lawrence Weiner, among others.