Wenzel, Roy

Wenzel’s parents came from Indonesia to Holland where he was born in 1959. The memory of periods of hospitalisation during childhood -suffering from severe eczema- has remained strong, revealed in the recurrent presence in pictures. In many of them he draws a small self-portrait figure with arms raised behind his head, hair standing on end, and face screwed into a silent scream. He first discovered the urge to draw at the age of eleven and quickly began spontaneously to draw on anything he could find.

Roy Wenzel uses his phenomenal photographic memory to depict landscapes and events. At home he draws in chalk and coloured pencils on large sheets of paper the images that have passed before his eyes, repeatedly including the same people who are important to him. His buildings are perfect specimens of perspectivist precision. Myriad chalk stripes grow into entire areas of colour that remain mobile thanks to the strokes and swirls. Wenzel’s work is figuratively and also literally layered, with several transparent overlapping images.

(Solo-) exhibitions: 2000, Loughborough University; University College Northampton; Museum De Stadshof Zwolle 2001; Backyard Genius, Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke 2009.
Monograph: Berkum, Ans van, Colin Rhodes, David Parker; Roy Wenzel. Works On Paper, Zwolle (Museum De Stadshof) 2000.
References: Verstraete, Phia; Roy Wenzel; een complex lijnenspel, in: Out of Art, jg 3 nr 4, 2008.

Roy Wenzel, Roy Roy Roy ..., tekening waskrijt.

Roy Wenzel, Roy Roy Roy …, tekening gouache.

Roy Wenzel
1959 Heerlen, The Netherlands -