Raoul De Keyser

During the sixties Raoul De Keyser was considered a representative of the Nieuwe Visie (new vision) in painting. His subjects were taken from the day-to-day environment and reduced to flat forms of color and line. From the seventies onward, his work becomes more abstract and ultimately the austere contours of the early work give way to a more liberal movement of the brush and paint. His work assumes an increasingly tranquil and poetic character; the potential of brushstroke and color seem to be explored continually. The Flemish art critic Ludo Bekkers describes this as follows: “Never does a work reach its conclusion. Often one can see, along the edges of the canvas, how it has been painted over in order to attain an acceptable result. But evidently it is never entirely acceptable, for the exploration continues in a subsequent work, sometimes with a different approach, a different formal structure, different use of color. And it is that very process of adaptation, correction and painting over which is so fascinating about this body of work.