The Swedish House 09

Across a series of 10 hand-finished prints, Julian Schnabel uses energetic interjections to connect an idyllic vignette with the here and now.

The Swedish House takes its name and subject from a trio of recent paintings based, unusually for the artist, on a photograph. Specifically, a photograph of a small house in rural Sweden. Taken by his brother in law, the postcard-picturesque image appealed to Schnabel’s poetic disposition – “a cliché of the perfect place.”

In each print a white oil paint mark punctuates the scene below, while a hand-poured layer of resin lends a glass-like finish. The gestural marks, a recurring motif throughout Schnabel’s practice, connect the artworks with the present moment. “It says that something's not finished, that we're transients – and there's something that goes beyond the edge.”