Walter Swennen

2007

Print, 56 x 76 cm.
Materials: Zeefrduk

Collection: Collectie M HKA, Antwerpen / Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap (Inv. no. BK7649).

The Brussels-based artist Walter Swennen is active as poet and painter, and his work often places to the fore this mutual exchange between word and image.  Swennen paints or draws with playful irony, with a particular talent for visual associations.  He calls himself an impaired painter, and further contends that he uses this 'impairment' in order to paint.

The piece Zij die hier zijn zijn van hier [Those who are here are from here], may be seen as a written painting or as a painted text.  This ambiguity is pursued in the text itself.  What at first sight seems like a clear, slogan-like message, becomes - after several readings - much less unequivocal.  Who exactly are the 'Those'?  And what is meant by 'here'?  Without context, is seems near impossible to discover its true meaning.