Amy Swartelé: Supernormal

Amy Swartelé: Supernormal is on view in the Massillon Museum’s Studio M from October 16 through December 1, 2021. Amy Swartelé lived in five countries before the age of 18, a nomadic experience that evolved into her love of travel and the strange. She learned early that what was considered normal or valuable in one place, was strange or devalued in another.Swartelé envisions a group of characters—imaginary friends and alter egos—as carnival sideshow performers. “Where people break out of the little boxes of what is considered normal, is where I find people being most human and genuine, and that is more fabulous and interesting than the polite masks we so often wear to fit what we perceive to be society's expectations. I think we are all ‘other,' I think we are all supernormal, and I think we should embrace and celebrate that fact,” Swartelé says. The carnival, she explains, was a place where all members of society, no matter how different from each other, could mingle and interact, and traditional norms and expectations were put aside for a time.Finding connections and dialogue and emphasizing the value of difference and discourse seems paramount to the artist. Her paintings playfully merge a range of styles and media because that process, for her, reflects the range of human possibilities. She sees how very different things can fit together without taboos. This family of sideshow characters melds species, genders, the animate, and inanimate.