Galerie Ramakers is pleased to present a duo exhibition featuring recent works by Willy de Sauter and sculptures by André Kruysen.
The exhibition will run from January 7 to February 11, 2024. In addition, from January 20, a solo by De Sauter will be presented in the main hall of Muhka Antwerp.
For over fifty years, Belgian artist Willy de Sauter (Bruges, 1938) has been stretching the outer limits of painting by deepening the foundations of the medium. Layer upon layer upon layer upon layer upon layer, this is how the paintings are created.
The rich oeuvre of more or less monochromatic chalk paintings on homemade panels continues to evolve. Totally new are the large formats of different types of white chalk: the warm white of chalk from the Champagne region, the whiter chalk from Meudon and the even whiter Spanish chalk. It is a subtle play and sometimes the horizontal or vertical line between two chalk types is barely perceptible. Sauter continues to push boundaries.
The labor-intensive paintings consist of many layers of chalk and animal glue, the materials with which the Flemish Primitives prepared their panels. Willy de Sauter is a perfectionist, but the surface is sensual. Fundamental, pure and austere are key words, reverberating in the secure arrangement. At the same time, they are changeable paintings that can shine like a mirror. A cloudy or sunny day, the incidence of light, the viewing position, the surroundings and the architecture: these are all factors.
Text: Christine Vuegen, June 2023
André Kruysen (The Hague, 1967)
The gaze in Kruysen's works is often reversed.
Perspectives must be unraveled and reassembled by the viewer. What the vanishing points ultimately lead to seems of no importance; it is the dynamics of looking itself that these sculptures are all about.
The gaze in the work is either inward or outward. The viewer's point of view ultimately determines the shape of the sculpture. Looking itself is central, has become form.
Reversal also takes place in the making process, the sculptures are composed of prints of objects, the negative space has become the positive form. Being and non-being are thus united.
Kruysen's large architectural works focus on the power play of the disruption and stillness of space, which he brings about through the manipulation of matter and light.
The struggle for balance between two extremes is a characteristic seen throughout his work. This constant paradox reflects his long-standing interest in Taoist thought.
Opposed to this is the urge to manifest; the sculptures carry a theatricality, sometimes even the grotesque in their inability to achieve unity and balance, both in the small and large measure. The works also evoke the association of stage images, or masquerades. They seem to add a character to the architecture or create an environment in which the viewer becomes an actor and can assume different positions.
The English word Stage has the double meaning of both stage and phase, a temporary state of being. The stage is empty, the action has yet to take place or has already done so, the viewer's turn.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)