Gegensätze II 1934

Walter Kurt Wiemken made 'Gegensätze II' with paint on paper. The ochre and tan background feels like a stage set for a theater of the absurd. The characters – a skinned animal, a statue, a seated woman, and figures holding hands in the frieze below – are rendered with an almost frantic energy. You can see the artist working and reworking. It’s as if Wiemken is wrestling with his own fears and anxieties, trying to make sense of a world spiraling out of control. I imagine him pacing back and forth, brush in hand, lost in thought. The paint is applied thinly, almost like a watercolor, allowing the paper to breathe and the light to pass through. The brushstrokes are quick and gestural, like a seismograph recording the tremors of the artist's mind. I think of other artists grappling with similar themes, like Ensor or Beckmann, and how they all feed into this ongoing conversation about what it means to be human in a world that often feels indifferent or hostile. Painting gives you permission to express what can't always be put into words.