Press Release

Walter Swennen

The NICOLE KLAGSBRUN GALLERY will present the first one-person exhibition of paintings by the Belgian artist WALTER SWENNEN. The exhibition will open Tuesday September 15, 1992 and will run through October 3. A reception for the artist will be held Tuesday evening, September 15 from 6-8PM.

WALTER SWENNEN is an artist who exhibited regularly and to critical attention in Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. This exhibition will introduce an American audience to his colourful quirky canvases. Swennen makes paintings in which recognisable images (often cartoon characters) are mixed with abstractions, shapes with conscious identities placed into a painterly field with no relationships or correlations.

These images are chosen for their neutrality; their existence lying between imitation and a public image. Swennen bellies it is impossible to agree with a painting, rather, he believes painting has to do with symphonies through which one can share passions. Using a Freudian concept translated by Lacan as “say anything without being afraid to talk nonsense”, Swennen once claimed his ideal was to paint just anything. But rather than confuse this with a means of expression which, he believes, cannot have an outlet or externalization in painting, he understands painting as a process of reposting always to what is already “outside” on the canvas. It is this process of becoming which is enlightening.