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The Visual Language of Balance
Elly Richaerts and the Poetry of Constructivism

In the world of Elly Richaerts, silence is never empty, and structure is never rigid. Her paintings speak, not loudly, but with a restrained power that transports you to a place where line and color give each other space, and where reason dances with the elusive.

Richaerts' work is an ode to constructivism, but never an echo of the past. She appropriates the formal language and breathes a personal rhythm into her canvases, as clear as it is mysterious. Every plane, every color choice, every stillness seems weighed, counted, and reinvented. Not as dogma, but as a living, breathing balance.

What at first glance appears rational—a geometric interplay of lines, a structured composition—reveals a deeper layer upon closer inspection: the intuition of an artist who senses what form alone cannot express. She builds, lets go, rearranges. Her work is a visual score, inviting the viewer not only to look, but to listen to the silence between the lines.

In a time when image and sound often clamor for attention, Richaerts chooses the subtle power of abstraction. Her paintings are anchors for the mind, beacons of harmony that don't impose themselves, but gradually draw you into a state of contemplation.

That her work finds its way into exhibitions in the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as into private collections, is no coincidence. It is the quiet expressiveness of an oeuvre that stands like a structure yet feels like a breath.

Anyone who allows themselves to be drawn into her visual universe will discover that abstraction doesn't create distance, but can actually evoke proximity. Elly Richaerts doesn't paint things; she paints relationships, moods, silences. In her hands, constructivism becomes not a style, but a form of poetry.

Leo Klein

L3O © 2025 Eygelshoven

September 7–October 26, 2025


Exhibition with members of the Corridor Eenenzestig art circle in Sittard, at the DaaWa Huizinga Molom gallery.

Lecture by Arjen van Prooijen May 9, 2025

About the lecture by Arjen van Prooijen on May 9, 2025.

“the origin of abstract art”

When I studied art history in the 1980s, it was explained to me that the first abstract work of art was a watercolor painted in 1910 by Wassily Kandinsky.

This story has been revised many times since then. New insights indicate that there were many more artists who thought about abstraction around that time. Not only male artists, but also many women, appear to be great innovators in art history.

Interestingly, the motivation to arrive at abstraction differed per artist.

In this lecture you will hear various hypotheses about the origin of abstract painting. We will look at many examples from a range of artists who all innovated art in their own way at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The lecture is in-depth on the subject but is certainly also easy to follow for people without much prior knowledge.

 

onstaan van abstracte kunst

2023 | all rights reserved  | Ine Feijen 

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