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Lot Essay
This painting is part of a series entitled 'Zwemmers' (Swimmers) (see also cat.nos. 33, 38, 39, 45 and 107).
In an interview with K. Schippers (Haagse Post, 22 September 1971) Westerik said about De Zwemmers series: 'I made five different swimmers, God knows, maybe i'll make a few more. Someone, who floats in the air, which just happens to be water here, and then far below the bottom, which in turn rises up to land, where everyone lives in houses. In that first painting the water was very imitative. I seriously tried to devise an essence of water without plants in it, and circles which catch the light. More intensive work, leaving out junk, whereby you retain even more of what is typically water, if you contrast it in your mind with flesh. I think that's a curious physical phenomenon.'
In an interview with Johanneke van Slooten (Raster, 1995), he described his choice of this subject: 'The situation has something of a self-portrait; that was fairly obvious. For example, I swam at Scheveningen, far from the shore you see the land steadily diminishing and you sense entire fathoms of water below. That is actually a very dangerous moment. It is the point of true departure, a point of departure in the symbolic sense.' (Fenna de Vries, Co Westerik, op. cit., p.116)
In an interview with K. Schippers (Haagse Post, 22 September 1971) Westerik said about De Zwemmers series: 'I made five different swimmers, God knows, maybe i'll make a few more. Someone, who floats in the air, which just happens to be water here, and then far below the bottom, which in turn rises up to land, where everyone lives in houses. In that first painting the water was very imitative. I seriously tried to devise an essence of water without plants in it, and circles which catch the light. More intensive work, leaving out junk, whereby you retain even more of what is typically water, if you contrast it in your mind with flesh. I think that's a curious physical phenomenon.'
In an interview with Johanneke van Slooten (Raster, 1995), he described his choice of this subject: 'The situation has something of a self-portrait; that was fairly obvious. For example, I swam at Scheveningen, far from the shore you see the land steadily diminishing and you sense entire fathoms of water below. That is actually a very dangerous moment. It is the point of true departure, a point of departure in the symbolic sense.' (Fenna de Vries, Co Westerik, op. cit., p.116)