Klaus Schweier - Reden ist silber...

Dream, time and eternity are, as variants of familiar physical quantities, the very human points of reference, in which Klaus Schweier finds and reinterprets the grand themes of mankind. The dream of flying, the creation myth, the cycle of coming to be and passing away, man as the hunter and the hunted, as an anthropomorphic or divinely inspired creature appear in his paintings in frank or associative tales. And he always follows new formal paths: He has developed new techniques in painting, drawing and etching, which allow him to paint on other bases than canvas. He has worked with reverse glass painting and mirror etching, and painted with Colanyl-colours which, depending on the admix of water, resemble oil-paints, tempera or watercolours. Schweier paints like a wizard. In successive phases of a painting, he also uses materials like tar, chalk and varnish. Moreover, he adds essences that aren´t easy to combine, like spirit, turpentine and shellac.

Even in his early works, he employed innovative techniques to put ancient archaic forms and signs in a contemporary context. He has since perfected his methods and created a little universe, that tells us about the masks of existence, about myths and legends, about archetypal men in happy liaison with animals, with dogs, deer, birds, shoals of fish as well as plants, flowers and stars. It is always the whole that matters, the great antipodes of existence, life and death, heaven and hell, anxiety and joy.

Klaus Schweier was born in Heidenheim/Germany in 1956. From 1977 to 1983 he studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin (now University of the arts/UdK) under Professor Bergmann. After a period of study in Paris, he taught at the Hochschule der Künste from 1992 till 1994. Since then he has been living as a freelance artist in Berlin. His works have been shown at numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad.