Walter Swennen

Widely regarded as one of Belgium’s most influential and uncompromising artists, Walter Swennen created a singular body of work that continually expanded the possibilities of painting. Born in Brussels in 1946, Swennen first pursued poetry and performance before turning to painting in the late 1970s. A poet before he became a painter, it is no coincidence that language plays a vital role in his practice. This early engagement with language would remain central to his practice, where words and signs—whether philosophical fragments, comic book snippets, or everyday street language—became catalysts for visual exploration. His radical, experiential, and associative approach to painting is perhaps best summarised as a belief in the total autonomy of the artwork. For Swennen, a painting does not need to be ‘emotive’ or ‘understood’: its primary goal is, quite simply, painting itself. Everything—form, colour, subject—comes from the outside.

Over the decades, Swennen forged an independent path defined by an unyielding commitment to his vision of the medium. His œuvre—varied in scale, style, and materials—may be seen as an ongoing investigation into painting’s potential and limitations, and the ever-present questions of subject and technique. The way he handled motifs, freely lifting them from both high and low culture, and manipulating them at will, is akin to a kind of visual poetry that harkens back to his earliest years as a writer. Characterised by humour, playfulness, and sharp intelligence, his paintings explore the relationship between symbols, meaning, and pictorial treatment with unmatched freedom.

Walter Swennen (b. 1946, Brussels, Belgium; d. 2025, Brussels, Belgium) has recently been honoured with a major retrospective at Kunstmuseum Bonn (2021), which travelled to Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (2021) and Kunst Museum Winterthur (2022). Solo exhibitions include La pittura farà da sé, La Triennale di Milano, Milan (2018); Ein perfektes Alibi, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2015); So Far So Good, WIELS, Brussels (2013-14); Continuer, Culturgest Lisbon (2013); Garibaldi Slept Here, Kunstverein Freiburg (2012) and How To Paint A Horse, Cultuurcentrum Strombeek and De Garage, Mechelen (2008).