For Svelte Thys (°1998), the garden is a decluded environment that, paradoxically, offers space. The swaying of leaves, the rustling of grass, the shifting of shadows, the woodpecker dancing around the weeping willow, the rooster chasing away the pigeons – these are images that settle in her mind. Comprehensible and incomprehensible, but above all, tangibly present.
In her studio, these impressions take shape as painterly thinking in color, form, and material. Her paintings do not seek to explain their meaning but rather invite us to look and to feel. They speak without words, communicate without explanation. For what cannot be named may reveal itself most clearly in the image.
Each work forms a world in itself – a universe that arises between perception and imagination. Yet they are part of a larger network of experiences, interpretations, and associative connections. In her practice, Svelte Thys searches for images that slow down. Images that leave room for the unnameable – and for the shared experience that, precisely there, in the unspoken, can come into being.
Svelte Thys is represented by Schönfeld Gallery.
