My Landscape

Ralph Roelse is known – or still far too unknown – for his extremely minimalist, wilful and challenging works of abstract painting. He regularly places these without permission in open – if often not exactly public – spaces. “The work benefits from this illegal edge,” he says. Crossing a bridge in a typical industrial area of Eindhoven, for example, you might be unaware that right beneath you is a conceptual mural worthy of a museum. Similarly, some of the freight wagons being shunted through the shipping terminals of the Benelux countries carry his finely composed free forms or his experimental geometries on their steely surfaces. In parallel, Roelse produces no less profound studio art. For him, the two practices are not separate but rather influence one another. Photography also plays a key role in the creative process. Painting outdoors is not an isolated activity but rather part of an entire post-industrial landscape. Conversely, a studio work can be transposed in such a way that – similar to the graffiti works – it transforms space as a piece of urban land art. Likewise, the staging of the gaze and the question of documentary-artistic transport are both always part of the work.

Robert Kaltenhäuser