A critical presence

different strokes

In a way, I am my own actor,” said Belgian artist Raoul De Keyser in an interview in 2002. “I create obstacles for myself in order to conquer them. There is some strategy involved in that, but most of it comes instinctively. I hardly work with drafts, so I allow myself to make mistakes. That is why I keep some paintings that aren’t perfect, but that have been influential. They have taught me something.”

By the time he died on October 5, 2012, aged 82, De Keyser had acquired a worldwide reputation. He was subject to numerous major retrospectives; his work had featured in prestigious events such as the Documenta and Venice Biennale. 

Interestingly, his evocative art was little known outside of his native Belgium until the late 1980s and 1990s. As Roberta Smith wrote in his tribute (New York Times /October 16, 2012): “Mr. De Keyser became one of the most respected painters of his time, but slowly. For much of his 50-year career, he exhibited primarily in Belgium and the Netherlands, achieving international recognition only after his work was included in the 1992 Documenta Exhibition in Kassel, Germany.” 

Locating beauty

In a career spanning five decades, the self-taught painter steadfastly worked with disarmingly simple motifs which, on first glance, seemed like stroppy abstractions. He rooted his art in his everyday life; drawing from routine views of his home; trees seen from studio windows; riverbanks; clouded skies; football fields and such other landscapes. “The things I see come back in one way or another.” 

With such unpretentious subjects, De Keyser was able to bring a sense of mystery to the work by underlining the illusion of reality; accentuating tensions between abstract and figurative painting; and provoking recognisable sensations, emotional vibrations and lyrical gesticulations. Ambiguity remained an essential characteristic of his art. No wonder, critics and common viewers found his work to be challenging, often contradictory, and sometimes impenetrable.

A reviewer surmised that De Keyser’s art was a struggle to locate beauty. “In a way his work has been about finding the sublime through the repetition of shape and colour in a deceptively simple way. The paintings, some as affecting as anything he’s done, are not intentionally beautiful, the near-irreverence they often emit is here subdued, but De Keyser’s work never fails to draw the viewer into his meditative ambiguity.”

Architect Paul Robbrecht, who was among De Keyser’s admirers wrote: “His paintings shift, glide, oscillate, overlap and at times, fall. There is spatial friction. It is precisely this extremely controlled sense of turmoil that lends the works their independence and noticeably removes them from the context in which they are shown. The art of De Keyser is what it should be: a critical presence.”

Signature style

Born in 1930, De Keyser whose father was a carpenter, worked as a sports journalist and took to art seriously only in his 30s. He was initially influenced by British pop art, minimalism, and abstract expressionism; and gradually evolved a very personal style in the 1970s by exploring the intersection of abstract and figurative art. 

Over time, his signature style came to be characterised by gentle brushstrokes and layers of light-colored paint. His critical, self-reflective practice increasingly sought to look for the relationship between paint and canvas. As his work became more and more suggestive and abstract, he moved away from concrete representation even though his brush marks did conjure up images that were reminiscent of a landscape or figure.

“We should not try to define whether or not there is representation,” insisted De Keyser. “Sensual appeal is of huge importance in art. It is where precision starts.  When I create a painting, it is important that the stroke or spot I apply can be verified in terms of sensuality, density or sympathy.”

Speaking further about his studio practice, De Keyser explained that waiting for a painting produced a certain tension and a certain excitement. For him, risk taking was an essential prerequisite for art making. “My studio currently contains four empty canvases, waiting to be handled. I am quasi avoiding them at present; I know I have to wait before I start. Once you start, you can get into a trance, with all the risks involved. Of course, there is intimacy between me and my canvases; but what is intimacy? There can be aggression between me and a canvas. For me, much of the joy of painting is in the risk factor; the fact of experiencing that risk.” 

De Keyser, whose sensitive and perceptible work influenced several contemporary Belgian artists, preferred to paint in series rather than concentrating on a single canvas. “I usually work in series; I like to exhaust a theme. It keeps things lively.  Most precious to me are the unforeseen things that occur while I am working. A movement made, a shape that comes about, an atmosphere that is suddenly created. You have to cherish those things.  They are fragile. If you put too much pressure on them, you destroy them.”

Even as he gained more and more international exposure and acceptance, De Keyser’s art remained a mystery to many. While some praised his sophistication and irony, others saw how autobiographical and intensely private his paintings were, even while they concentrated on the fragmentary and the left-behind. There were also those critics who perceived a lack of technical virtuosity in his art, and an ineptitude and awkwardness in his abstractions. 

“It is impossible to neatly classify Raoul De Keyser’s paintings,” wrote a critic. “The difficulty one faces in analysing the steps in De Keyser’s work is exactly why he’s a painter’s darling; his spare and efficient abstractions stir up a wealth of discussion about what painting is, and where it has come from as few contemporary artists can.”

On his part, De Keyser never wanted his art to be decorative, monumental and intentionally eye-catching. “I don’t want to become the ‘pretty’ painter,” he said in 2002. “Ultimately I want to paint ruthlessly.”