The Duke 1990

Willem de Looper’s ‘The Duke’ is an immersive abstract painting of layered shapes and textures. You can feel the hand of the artist in the application of paint, the way it's been built up in these planes of blacks, oranges, and grays. I wonder what De Looper was thinking as he made this, what hesitations, what decisions, what intuitive leaps were at play as he built up the painting’s surface? It’s almost architectural in its construction, with planes stacked and jutting out from each other. The palette has a muted urban quality, like a rainy afternoon in the city. That thick impasto over there, for instance, creates a sense of depth. De Looper’s work reminds me of other process-oriented painters. It is like he’s in conversation with all the other abstract painters, all figuring it out together, each influencing the other. We see how painting evolves and shifts over time, always open to new ideas.