Untitled (Village view with self-portrait)
— Wenzel, Roy
The memory of periods of hospitalisation during childhood has remained strong, revealed in the recurrent presence in pictures. In many of them Wenzel draws a small self-portrait figure with arms raised behind his head, hair standing on end, and square face screwed into a silent scream.
The same working method is common to all of his production, consisting of an over-layering technique based on a strong linear framework. Individual elements are initially drawn in full view, without concession to the obscuring effects of their position in relation to the viewer. This is significant because he also tends to compose around a pictorial space based on linear perspective. The result is therefore a characteristic transparency of forms. Colour is subsequently blocked in and a process of obliteration and retrieval takes place, at times in the cause of emphasising particular figures or objects, but at others seemingly for purely composition reasons.