Walter Swennen Parti chercher du white spirit

Jazz, and more specifically the art of improvisation, is an interesting lens through which to consider Swennen’s work. Like the best extemporiser, the artist never makes the same painting twice. He works without premeditation, eschews convention and has no interest in mimesis, let alone style. His paintings are created, instead, through a process of intuitive unfolding: one thing leads to another, there are encounters and accidents, spur of the moment decisions, the exploration of unusual effects, reflections and interactions, the use of ‘errors’ to create new possibilities and, ultimately, an irrepressible energy and rawness to the end result. As Swennen himself has said: ‘the work starts on the canvas, is made on the canvas, and it’s on the canvas that it’s finished’. His sources are the visual references at his disposal – advertisements, logos, signs, old paintings, photos and random objects that happen to catch his eye – as well as language, and the medium itself, the paint.

But take note: an image might be the catalyst for a work but is not always its subject. Nor are the paintings rapidly executed as many take months to complete. They are also incredibly multi-layered. Firstly, there is a material layering which, if one looks closely enough, might be discernible on the surface or edges of the canvas. Secondly, there is the question of time. Not only is there a durational aspect to the making of the works, but they evoke, and often juxtapose, elements borrowed from different eras. Finally, there is a conceptual layering that is harder to pin down. In Swennen’s paintings, letters and images become detached from their typical contexts and enter into fresh visual and linguistic relationships. Words conjure up images, just as images possess linguistic connotations. It is this interface – between text and image, on the one hand, and the act of painting on the other – that fascinates Swennen. What becomes visible in these paintings, therefore, is less of a knowable reality and more of a cognitive process, a unique way of thinking about the world and making sense of its myriad wonders, sorrows and, above all, absurdities. In other words, these paintings are manifestations of the way in which Walter Swennen thinks.

Walter Swennen (b. 1946) lives and works in Brussels. His work will be the subject of a major exhibition this year, Das Phantom der Malerei, that opens in the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, and travels to the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the Netherlands (2021) and Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland (2022). Other solo exhibitions include: La pittura farà da sé, La Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy (2018), Ein perfektes Alibi, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany (2015) and So Far So Good, WIELS, Brussels, Belgium (2013).