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dane101.com April '09 art review written by Miriam Hall Absolutely Art, Madison’s major supporting-of-local-artists gallery and shop, turns FOUR today! Located next to the once-was-privately-owned-Café-Zoma, soon-to-be-ERC-owned-Café-Zoma, Absolutely Arts’ art pieces light up Atwood. From corrugated plastic fish to hand printed hemp kitchen gear, the bottom part, from waist down, of the shop is always packed with friendly gift ideas. Their walls sparkle over with featured artists every month, and once you sneak around the corners, you find other artists’ oeuvres also on display.
This month, to usher in their birthday, artist Steve Dwyer (www.stevedwyerart.com) put up a selection of his oil paintings and sketches. Having earned a Bachelor of Science in Arts at the UW Madison (my favorite kind of degree), he went through a few years of serving others for his art. Now he paints or draws what he likes. The results are eminently likable. Boats on one of our lakes, sunsets, sweet and often impressionistic takes on flowers and other natural phenomenon. Quiet, soothing paintings with a great degree of skill. The name of the show is aptly titled “Home.” Madison Magazine Jan '08 Issue written by Katie Vaughn Un-still Life. Steve Dwyer used to make art for others. The Madison native, trained at both the Art
Institute of Chicago and UW-Madison- deftly painted still lifes., flowers and other "pleasant" images
people would want to hang on their walls.
Then he decided to paint for himself.
"I wanted to portray what my life was about, my loves, my fears, my hates", he says. "I started to
care less about selling and more about telling a story in my paintings."
The result is a varied collection of oil paintings that depict his son skateboarding as readily as they
take up past loves or scenes from his hometown.
Several of Dwyer's works delve into personal symbolism. "Rebirth"-which features a black funnel
cloud approaching a boy seated in the foreground-puts onto canvas a tornado that has chased the
artist in nightmares since childhood. Yet such imagery is accessible to anyone, he says.
"The tornado could be a symbol of something else, such as the bully that picked on you as a child,
that one teacher that scared you so much you didn't want to go to school, the one thing in life that
scares you the most," he says. In the painting I am seen calmly confronting my greatest fear. It's a
crossroads of growing and moving forward in life."
The Capital Times Dec ‘07 Issue written by Kevin Lynch
What’s with the deflected faces in the paintings of Madison painter Steve Dwyer that are on display
at the Bartell Theatre?
The pedantic skeptic might assume he never mastered the nuances of the human face. Regardless,
we’re left with plenty more to ponder, in the vanishing road that Rosemary faces or the ferocious
twister a young man eyes with a simular fateful ennui. Are authentic emotions lost in their hidden
features and the Zen-like postures? Or has looming destiny stolen them already?
The Isthmus May ‘06 Issue written by Boo Boo the Chicken Critics’ Choice
The Madison painter shows landscapes, still lifes and portraits, alluding to Da Vinci and Cezanne
along the way. His images of drinkers and rockers complement the action in Cafe Montmartre’s main
room.
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