Already during his study at the art academy, Kees de Vries was fascinated by the pure white and the beauty of salt crystals. But you can't paint with salt. You can't make white paint out of salt. Salt is an unruly material: it dissolves if it gets too damp, it discolors when most epoxies are used, it attacks most materials such as metals when in prolonged contact, you can't model it because of its loose structure. For nearly 30 years he tried over and over again to preserve the salt crystals so he could capture the beauty. Eventually he succeeded and the first works with salt were created that could simply be hung in the house and remained stable.
This was soon followed by research into one of the most mysterious characteristics of salt: it dissolves in water, but then salt crystals can grow again from water. With this, especially at the time of corona, he created a series of works that refer to the meaning of salt in our society: after all, the salt of the earth for us humans is eating and drinking together. Many proverbs refer to the use of salt, many religions use salt in various rituals. And long ago salt was even used as currency.
His latest series of work again refers to the pure beauty of salt, 'Covered by Beauty', a hint to the proverb 'to cover with the cloak of love'.