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Bryan Award winning painter returns with more 'crazy stuff' |
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Written by DAVID DUPONT Festival Program Editor
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Thursday, 02 August 2012 11:50 |
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Bryan award winner, Andy Van Schyndle, with his paintings at last year's Black Swamp Arts Festival. (Photo: J.D. Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune)
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For painter artist Andy Van Schyndle coming to the Black Swamp Arts Festival in 2011 was a trip into the unknown.
The Wisconsin-based artist specializes in trips to the unknown. His canvasses are full of odd images of wacky circuses, vampire penguins and space aliens. “Midwest surrealism,” he calls his work.
Van Schyndle never heard of the festival before, he saw it listed on the ZAPP, the site the festival uses to handle applications to the juried show, and given he had an open weekend in his schedule decided to take a chance.
“It was fantastic,” Van Schyndle said. “It was one of my best shows of the year.” His triumph was capped by winning the Dorothy Uber Bryan Painting Award.
So he’ll be back on the street when the art show occupies Main Street Bowling Green Sept. 8 and 9. Saturday art show hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Van Schyndle does about 20 shows a year. “I tend to go back to a lot because I know what they’re like and I’ve got a good client base.” Still he tries out a few new shows a year. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”
The Black Swamp Arts Festival was definitely a winner. “It was great, just perfect.”
He loved “the energy” of the event. In some shows “the crowds are lackadaisical ... people just mill around.”
In contrast, “you could just tell people were really excited to be there,” Van Schyndle said. “The crowd is what makes it a good or bad show.”
His girlfriend will come with him this year, so he’s looking forward to getting out and seeing more of the show.
Van Schyndle, 37, is in his ninth year on the art fair circuit. The journey started in elementary school in Green Bay, Wisc., when he and his friends would get together to draw cartoon and video game characters, Pac-Man, Frogger and Donkey Kong. “We always looked forward to a rain day at recess, so we’d just stay inside and draw cartoons.”
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Last Updated on Thursday, 02 August 2012 11:54 |
