M HKA Ensembles

Painting, 3 x (100 x 80 x 5.5 cm).

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. S0102_01, S0102_02, S0102_03).

The work Poetry of the Book is a component of the series Time Paintings, a series of abstract paintings with a clear, poetic dimension.  It consists of three paintings with large and striking smooth planes of color, accompanied by a smaller colored surface in a contrasting color, always in changeable combinations.

Cruyt investigates essential elements such as material, form and color.  This fits within the tradition of abstract painting from the 1960s when artists delved into the use of painting's essential elements: material, form, color.  Abstract forms comprised, according to the abstract painters of the Sixties, the closest equivalent to the intellectual approach to volumes, light and balance.

Another important element in Cruyt's work is the notion of time.  Works from the series Time Paintings may be seen as visual portraits of time: past, present and future.  It is a process of slow maturation, for artist and viewer alike.  The floating, repetitive aspects of time - but its ephemeral nature, as well - is expressed in color and surface.

The complexity in the painted surface stands in contrast to simple use of form and color, and mirrors the layerdness of the painting process.  With brush and paint and much patience, Cruyt creates timelessness - layer by layer.  Painting to be read like a book.