With humor and the real wonder of a child Swarte shows unexpected insights and he pulls us in his optimistic world of boundless possibilities. In Shanghai, where he taught at the university, he found the museum of graphic history and spoke with two old men about preserving all these political documents, only to discover that the booming China is not interested in its past but only in the future. But he continued to think about this problem and possible solutions, and to pull out dust-covered posters and billboards and make them presentable for the general public.
 
“I did a three-year course at the Academie voor Industriële Vormgeving in Eindhoven. Then I left to concentrate on producing comic strips. Telling stories is the thread that runs through my career. In France, I published my stories in Charlie Mensuel and Métal Hurlant. In America, my work was published in Raw Magazine. I have drawn postage stamps for the Netherlands Post office and produced illustrations for the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland, the Belgian magazine Humo and the New Yorker.
In 1998 I designed my first piece of stained glass for a new construction project in the Marnixstraat in Amsterdam.  This was followed by many more, including one produced for the Law Courts in Arnhem, which was the most talked about. In Haarlem, where I live, I designed the Toneelschuur Theatre and, for the Town Hall, a carpet with 61 pictograms, all of which recount the history of the city.
I work for myself, but almost always within the framework of a commission.”

It comes as no surprise to learn that he has produced leaded glass, since the contour lines of comic-strip art are a clear development of the tradition of telling stories within the reticulation of perpendicular lines and cheerful coloured shapes produced from hand-blown flat glass. He produced works of this kind for a housing association in Amsterdam, a swimming bath in Breda and a flower stall in Haarlem. June 2005 saw the official unveiling of the stained glass windows produced for the great wall of glass looking out onto the patio in the central hall of the Law Courts in Arnhem. Six sculptures by Swarte had already been accommodated there: colourful strip cartoons over two metres high represent everyday themes such as life and death; expectation and disappointment; cooperation and human roots; death by eating or being eaten, by theft or escape, by seeding rain or gathering clouds or sunshine.

In the context of the rule whereby the construction of government buildings must include the expenditure of 1% of the budget on the commissioning of decorative artwork, he was asked to produce an optimistic and surprising response to the serious intent of the law court building, and one of the wishes expressed was that he should create something relating directly or indirectly to the administration of justice.  The commission was supervised by the Arts Commission of the Combined Justice Services for the District of Arnhem. The series of leaded glass windows soften the light streaming in by means of 14 large windows comprised in seven frames and spread over an area measuring more than 25 metres in width and 3.88 metres in height.  In his design, Swarte assimilated virtually all facets of the administration of justice: in addition to penal law and criminality, other aspects of judicial activity portrayed include family law, the law on foreigners and aliens, disturbance of the peace, environmental law, labour law and the growing internationalisation of the law.

New commissions followed: to design houses, the museum with the collection of Hergé in Louvain, Belgium, the cheerful routing of the cancer ward for children in the Radbout hospital Nijmegen.
In 2014 Joost Swarte made leaded glass for the Bavinckschool, Acasiastraat, the Hague. The building of the Bavinckschool is a typical example of a school from the beginning of the last century, complete with glazed columns and a beautiful staircase. During the renovation the stained glass windows in the stairwell disappeared and that was experienced by the school as a great loss. From that starting point, Stroom Den Haag has searched for artists who have something to do with glass and windows. The final choice fell on Joost Swarte who, in addition to his illustrations, has a huge track record in this area. ??The style of Joost Swarte connected very well with the atmosphere and materials of the building and its users. The budget was not sufficient to be able to use all the windows in the stairwell, but rather for a new window at the end of the corridor on the first floor. Swarte was inspired by the teaching method of 'multiple intelligence' that is used on the Bavinckschool. He has added - besides primal symbols as the book and the bike also explicit references to the present time such as e-mail and the smartphone. Stroom says: “A teacher of the school was so touched by the glass and lead, that he followed course and made a replica for the stairwell from the old windows. The atmosphere of the past now relates beautifully up to the present.
 
And
Yes ...: his cartoon characters are similar to him and he resembles his cartoon characters!
Correction: Christine Andersen, DK
 
www.joostswarte.com