Bas Kwakman

literary - painting - drawing

As a traveling poet, writer and visual artist, Bas Kwakman collects events and memories that last, images that overwhelm and concepts that surprise. He then decides whether these lead to text or image. However, it remains close to each other - his prose and poetry are visual and his visual work is poetic and / or narrative.
The visual work appears alongside its own prose (Azul Press and publishing house De Arbeiderspers), as an illustration for (international) publications, such as magazines and literary publications or as an autonomous work at exhibitions.
The drawings with Aspara pencil and / or graphite marker are figurative and narrative and the watercolors (portraits, buildings and landscapes) are mainly made with coffee, a material that has a high transparency due to the absence of pigment. The paintings are slightly more abstract and stand out because of the coarse texture, the limited use of color, the suggestion of space, the rhythm, the repetition and the material expression.


TAPE

Exhibition / presentation

  • 03-07-2020 t/m 02-08-2020
  • In collaboration with: Edwin Smet
  • Location: Pulchri Studio, The Hague
  • Exhibition in the two Klinkenberg rooms of Pulchri Studio with work from my series As Galerias Corunesas (glass fronts in the port of A Coruña) and Grenfell (the Grenfell Tower in Kensington, London, which went up in flames on 14 July 2017 after opportunistic construction behavior and poor maintenance )
  • http://www.pulchri.nl/tentoonstellingen/kwakman-en-smet-tape

Acknowledgments

    Pricing
  • Ioannes Bresensis Award Mexico City

  • 2018
    Pricing
  • Rotterdam culture medal

  • 2019
    Pricing
    Publication
  • A Voice of Horsehair

  • 2014
  • Prose and Drawings
  • Azul Press - Bas Kwakman / Lies van Gasse
    Publication
  • Hotel room stories

  • 2017
  • Prose and drawings/watercolour
  • Publisher De Arbeiderspers - Bas Kwakman