Bram Bogart, matter painting, 1959
We may consider the Dutchman Bram Bogart as a pivotal figure in matter painting. His informal work involves a wonderful technique, with which he has developed his oeuvre in a uniquely personal way. At the end of the 1950s, the artist was still living in Paris, where he pushed his experiment further. They were canvases full of rough, thick greys and browns, with few colour accents. In the 1960s he moved to Belgium where he made his work on wooden supports. Bogart turned barrels full of cement-like matter with colour pigments with his own hands – his feeling with his material was passionate and physically heavy. His matter paintings consisted of an abstraction of heavy shapes created by hand, often monochrome.
‘Composition’ is a monumental expression of stormy matter, an example of informal class and finesse. Deriving from his barrels of manually mixed colours, there are the many variant colour charms that were regrettably replaced by industrial coloured matter in his work after the 1970s.
– For more works by this artist, contact the gallery. –