Wenzel, Roy

Roy Wenzel, born in Heerlen, the Netherlands, in 1959. Complications at birth caused brain damage that resulted in a mental handicap. He now lives in the family home of his retired brother and visits a day center. He has been drawing since he was eleven years old. Almost incapable of speech, drawing is for him a primary and essential means of communication. He talks to his figures, usually family members, as he draws them. Usually he depicts himself as a small child, mouth wide open as in a loud scream. His vehement emotions are evident from the intense expressiveness of the work in which he often shows a hardly concealed sexuality.