Architectural influence is felt throughout Schwedler’s oeuvre. Ladders, stairways, trestles, beams, ropes, and other structural accouterments are placed in sparse, surreal environs, jutting into space, disappearing beyond the frame's limits, and serving no apparent purpose. Brick walls, scaffolding, and a recognizable horizon provide the viewer with familiar touchstones, yet isometric projection, linear perspective, and familiar cardinal directions are done away with in favor of abstracted and illogical spatial reasoning. Axes are disregarded, and in later works, the depth of field is abandoned entirely, with Schwedler’s abstractions occurring on a single plane. Yet, as seen in his shaped-canvas works, the third dimension is ever-present, with elements of the composition, or the substrate itself, protruding into space. 

Noticeably void of the direct references to or depictions of the body politic common to the work of his Chicago peers, the New York pop-art scene, or even his queer contemporaries, Schwedler’s work operates on a subconscious level.  Without making bold statements or proclamations, his invented architectures subtly but profoundly affects the viewer’s physical and mental state by altering positionality, sense of scale, distance, and depth.  His vertigo-inducing compositions reflect an inner psychological landscape, untethered from the comforts of convention and the familiar, a liminal space and state of being.

These are perplexing objects of an impossible and unreal nature, in a space which, itself, does not exist. Schwedler says his paintings are crazy and put people off. I would disagree. These beautiful paintings are crazy enough, and they do fall between objects and landscapes, but enormously involve the very people who are bugged by them.

- James A. Speyer, Curator of the Department of Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1961 - 1986