Piet Zwaanswijk: ‘Primates occupy Bern’

A collection of monkeys in all shapes and sizes

October 2 oktober – December 3, 2021 at Café Bern

From the 3rd of October until the 2nd of December, 2021 Piet Zwaanswijk (1947) is exhibiting a selection of his work at Café Bern. All-embracing theme of the work shown in Bern: a collection of monkeys in all shapes and sizes.

Please feel free to drop by. From 4:00-6:00 p.m. you can come and see the exhibition at your ease. Or late at night, after 11:00 p.m., when the rather busy dinner time has finished and a lovely relaxed “after hours” atmosphere has descended on Café Bern.

Below you can already have a preview of some of the works exhibited at Café Bern.

QR code with monkey

Piet Zwaanswijk

Charcoal and acrylic on paper
60 x 40 cm, frame included

Exhibited at Café Bern
from October 2 until December 3, 2021

Untitled

Piet Zwaanswijk

Charcoal and acrylic on paper
60 x 40 cm, frame included

Exhibited at Café Bern
from October 2 until December 3, 2021

Evolutionary self-portrait

Piet Zwaanswijk

Charcoal and acrylic on paper
60 x 40 cm, frame included
SOLD

Exhibited at Café Bern
from October 2 until December 3, 2021

Untitled

Piet Zwaanswijk

Coloured-in printing
100 x 70 cm

Exhibited at Café Bern
from October 2 until December 3, 2021

Untitled

Piet Zwaanswijk

Charcoal and acrylic on paper
60 x 40 cm, frame included

Exhibited at Café Bern
from October 2 until December 3, 2021

Piet Zwaanswijk

Haarlem, 1947

Piet Zwaanswijk is an autodidact and has been an artist since 1967. It would be hard to categorize his work as part of a movement or school. To him the self-chosen “Quasirealism” comes closest to characterize his work. The wide range of images, expressions, material use and techniques, mixed and interchanged all the time, all contribute to a unique image of Zwaanswijk.

As varied as his palette is his choice of subjects: images from newspapers or from the TV news, social injustice, war, terrorism, suicide, eroticism as well as humour, glamour, music or the seamy side of life.

Other sources of inspiration are his long stays in Indonesia, as well as art history. In short, life as it presents itself to Zwaanswijk: from understated to exuberant, from absurdistic to realistic, from abstract to figurative. Fragmentary connections that show multiple sides of subject and artist in all forms of expression. A major part of his work stems from passion and impulsiveness, to touch, to inspire, above all to amaze himself (and us). The work of Piet Zwaanswijk is similar to that of Martin Kippenberger (Germany) or Edwin Wurms (Austria): just as capricious and unimaginable, just as varied in its forms of expression.

©2024 by Café Bern