M HKA Ensembles

Painting, 92 x 73 cm.

Collection: Private.

In the castle in the Middelheim Park, the first
G58 exhibitions were held there between May
and October 1958, with alternating groups of
four or five artists. Verheyen participated in the
fifth group exhibition together with Vic Estercam,
Paul Bervoets and Walter Vanermen. He exhibited
his first monochrome and achrome experiments.
Callewaert described them in a review, “And my
preference always goes out to these spontaneous,
sometimes very poetic sketches, where the
inspiration is not killed by endless finessing,
and which sometimes contain a floating feeling
and a diffused light. Alongside wide-ranging
variations on the same theme – a semicircle, a
gentle arc, floating or draped in space – Verheyen
exhibits a curious monochrome painting entirely
in white, which derives its entire impact from the
relief of the paint and from the effect of light.”

This work, entitled Monochrome - Achrome I, can be linked to the same idea of Wit op Wit, 'White on white' (39). With a knife the artist applied white paint onto the burlap.