Karel Dierickx

Karel Dierickx's existential radicalism will always keep him aloof from the current generation of Flemish painters, but over the years the aristocratic appeal of his aloofness has grown. It is the detachment, the integrity of someone who is such an integral part of the great painting tradition that he no longer needs any environment, a school or trend. He has enough work in the time and space around him. It is the breath of a body of work that is self-sufficient in the iconographic space of its own intimacy, while simultaneously recognisable as a human living space. It is the freedom of the old master who has reached the moment about which Paul Klee says: 'Drawing is taking a line out for a walk.' It is the freedom of the old Henri Matisse: the hand knows its way through the complex paths of painting laid down through the centuries, yet settled in its own existence. Freedom and rigour, a room filled with light and reflection, and work that spreads out towards the window. An artist could not ask for more. (Stefan Hertmans)