Pop Mennonite

In this art exhibit Swartzentruber addresses pacifism, missions, courtship, adornment, work ethic, and other issues that are held to be important to this religious group.

Don Swartzentruber is probably used to the litany of back-handed adjectives used to describe his accomplished and visionary, if decidedly difficult, art.

The collection, which offers a visual critique of Old Order culture, while juxtaposing it with popular comic book imagery, also includes a soundtrack featuring snippets of Anabaptist hymns and tent sermons.

The paintings, which show influences ranging from regionalist painters Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton to Disney animation, feature a variety of Old Order subjects and scenes presented with surreal twists...In the May 16 Canadian Mennonite magazine, Ilse E. Friesen, an art history professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., wrote: "[Swartzentruber] portrays the shortcomings of his own ethnic community, confronting and even caricaturing their systemic problems and troubling aspects, so that sins, temptations and depravities are not only characteristic of the secular world outside.

"[8] Ervin Beck, a retired Goshen English professor who serves on the Mennonite-Amish Museum Committee, said while the collection critiques conservative society, it does so fairly and also emphasizes positive aspects.

Robert Rhodes, Mennonite Weekly Review [9] "… I found myself drawn into the surreal world of the artist behind the pictures - Don Swartzentruber.

"…It is far from that, and viewers might even find themselves longing for a little more clarity and reassurance that their world is not really as dangerous a place as it appears to be in the Pop-Mennonite exhibit.

… His stated goal was to create "a window, a doorway to dialogue about these issues," and judging from the responses posted in his guest book, he succeeded.