The Tilburg artist Koen Delaere (1970) worked in one of De Pont’s guest studios from 1995 to 1996. On graduating from the Academie voor Beeldende Vorming, his work already stood out due to the great conviction with which he intended to ‘reinvent’ all of painting. This involved such key ideas as development, rampant growth and change.

His drawings often begin with a recognizable motif such as a branch, a flower or an animal. He then allows this play of lines to develop further in a tangle of abstract forms. The result is an irregular composition which draws the eye mainly by way of the layeredness, the ‘handwriting’ and the dynamics of the image.

In his paintings Delaere also strives for a dynamic image that comes about from the unpredictable ‘chemistry’ between the material, its treatment and the element of chance. Sometimes this idea of chemistry can be taken literally with respect to the way in which the paint blends, dries and colors. Delaere uses various kinds of paint and applies these to the canvas in broad movements. Streaks, smears, blotches and spatters attest to the treatment of the canvas and give it texture and contrast. Though some works may give rise to associations with landscape, this is not a deliberate theme for Delaere. He sooner displays a fascination with the fusion of distance and detail, color and structure, form and change, material and image – aspects of transformation that continue to make up the essence of painting.