Van Hoeydonck: The Fifties

I have been drawing and painting as long as I can remember, yet in my youth I never met a single artist.

In 1954 Monochrome and semi-monochrome collages came directly out of the simplified semi-figurative canvases and gouaches of harbour lights. For example the Moroccan houses and rooftops of St Tropez town vies were treated as geometric pattern and harbour lights were reduced to dots of colour on an even background.

The transition of abstract collages was done very smoothly and not under imaginary international influences. It was at this time I was working in solitary, cut off almost entirely from any art scene. The followed painted strips, colour vibration oil paintings and toy reliefs which were derived from this period.

I was not at all aware at the time of the activities of Fontana, Manzoni or Klein. I did not meet them prior to 1959.

Paul Van Hoeydonck