Recover 2003

Raoul De Keyser made this painting, Recover, with paint on canvas to create something that feels like a quiet conversation. The canvas is mostly covered in a creamy, off-white that's been brushed on with an almost casual touch. There are horizontal lines and dots scattered across the canvas in a seemingly random arrangement. The color palette is muted, with soft yellows, greens, and blues. The lines aren't perfectly straight, the dots aren’t perfect circles, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s like he’s showing us that making art is more about the process than the final outcome. The surface has a tactile quality. I can almost feel the drag of the brush across the canvas. There's a kind of humility here, in the way the colors are laid down, and that reminds me a bit of Giorgio Morandi, who made paintings of bottles and boxes, everyday things, using a similar reduced palette and an interest in humble subjects. De Keyser invites us to slow down and find beauty in the simplest forms.