M HKA Ensembles

Painting

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. S0411).

After his in-depth investigation into the possibilities of painting in the 1980s, Raoul De Keyser focused on monochrome images in the early 1990s, but not merely as an exercise in purity. He always linked what is beyond the sensorial, the abstract, to the sensorial and physical aspects of the painting, by regularly scratching or staining the work. We might ask if De Keyser’s colour fields really are monochrome. He appeared to be layering different surfaces on top of each other, as if foreground and background were always overlapping. The unity of the image is disturbed.

Centrum demonstrates this working method. We notice a duality: the colours do not fully connect to each other; their different layers are thin and transparent. The edges of the surface let us realise that this is ‘only’ a painting. Yet if we focus longer on the work the surface slowly begins to move. The nebulous grey is on its way in the opposite direction, away from the gold. Foreground and background slide effortlessly into each other. With such serene images De Keyser knew how to send his viewers out in all directions: from the deep the superficial, from the mysterious to the everyday, from the simple to the complex, and back again.