CO-WORKING SPACE 

Walter Swennen born in 1946, Brussels, Belgium.  Lives and works in Brussels.

Walter Swennen is known for his radical, experiential and associative approach to painting, which is perhapsbest summarised as a belief in the total autonomy of the artwork. For Swennen, a painting does not need to be ‘emotive’ or ‘understood’: the primary goal of painting is, quite simply, painting. Everything form, colour, subject comes from the outside. A poet before he became a painter, it is no coincidence that languageplays a vital role in his practice. Although his œuvre varies greatly in scale, style and materials, it can beconstrued as an on-going exploration into the nature and problems of painting (its potential and limitations), the fundamental question of what to paint (subject matter), and how (technique). The way that he handlesmotifs he takes them as he finds them, high or low, and manipulates them at will is akin to a kind of visualpoetry that harks back to his early career as a writer. Freely associative, and above all humorous, Swennen’spaintings explore the relationship between symbols, legibility, meaning and pictorial treatment.