Daniel Walravens

"These visual proposals are essentially articulated around the theme of colour which, since 1965, has been the guiding concern of my work. My motivations have led me to work both as a painter-taking into account gesture and expression before moving towards a more purified kind of 'minimalism,' and to multidimensional work as a decorator and colour designer, researching and formulating methods that belong more to scientific disciplines. My current activity should be understood as a series of constant cross-references between these various activities, ultimately cancelling to the benefit of their possible interactions the traditional oppositions applied to art: artistic/decorative painting, artist/craftsman, art/industry." (D.W.)

Daniel Walravens has produced a number of shade cards for colour manufacturers, such as Tollens, and since the 1970s has worked as a painter of places based on these shade cards, along with paintings and murals which analyse the paint. Seeing colours, distinguishing their significant moments by provoking perception and sensation, in order to arouse emotion, which itself is already open to interpretation-this is no doubt the essential thrust of the work proposed by Daniel Walravens. Everything he has done is about working through the experience of seeing what is subtle and the extensive exploration of the phenomenon we call colour. This profusely illustrated monograph, the only one currently available, introduced by a text by the art critic Jacinto Lageira and accompanied by the artist's comments on his work, is a way of returning the rightful place in the history of contemporary painting owed to this atypical artist, celebrated by Denys Riout, Bernard Marcadé, Daniel Soutif, Jean-Pierre Criqui, Nicolas Bourriaud, and even Luk Lambrecht and Jan Hoet in Belgium.