Walter Swennen Belgium / 1946

Details

Oil on vinyl

Monogram on the reverse '04

106 x 130 cm

Provenance

Gal. Maruani, Brussels

Literature

"How to paint a horse. Walter Swennen" Koen Leemans & Luk Lambrecht, Strombeek-Mechelen 2008, exhibition cat., no. 277 ill.
"Walter Swennen, So Far So Good" Raphaël Pirenne & Dirk Snauwaert eds., Wiels, Brussels 2014, exhibition cat., no. 404 ill.

Lot essay

Very simple, painting

Painting is in all respects a completely absurd activity. Time and again, one has to make choices without any criteria. Each painting is a new beginning.

These are the words of Walter Swennen. The Brussels-based painter, however, gladly accepts the challenge of this ever-recurring white surface. You could call it art out of necessity. Or rather: art out of fundamental curiosity. A constantly repeated struggle with paint and colour. For Swennen, a painting does not have to be 'emotional' or 'understood': the very first goal of painting is, quite simply, to paint. A continuous investigation into the nature and problems of painting, into the fundamental question of what to paint, and how.

Swennen is known for a radical, experience-oriented and associative approach to painting, in which many different influences come together: jazz, philosophy, literature, comics ... the list is endless. But despite these many impressions: "I know I am a painter, but I don't know what to paint." Anyone who listens carefully hears a belief in the total autonomy of the work of art. And where art is autonomous, the possibility of classifying something into a style or school disappears. After all, adopting a style implies a certain routine.

Walter Swennen is therefore the artist who always goes back to square one. When one problem is solved, another arises. So there is no other option than to just start and do it. The result is an unusually fascinating and rich oeuvre that varies greatly in scale, style and material.