Language or text are often conspicuously present in Ton Kraayeveld's work. This is often added in the form of an extra linguistic layer to the figurative representation in the painting. Language thereby functions, as it were, as a supplement, an interpretation or questioning of a painting or representation. In addition, there is a series of works in which text is the central element of the works, more autonomously and independently of representation or figuration. Rotating clockwise and overlapping each other, words form together colourful compositions in which references to time and space are evoked: Now-Here-For-Ever-Now-This-Up-If-Real-Time.
His paintings can be read as a game between real and unreal or between meaning and non-meaning. Figuration and abstraction are not mutually exclusive, but are mutually complementary.