The Belgian ZERO artist Jef Verheyen (1932-1984) became known as the painter of light streams and colour spectra. He experimented not only with light, but also with movement and the invisible as means to evoke natural mechanisms and to reveal universal interrelationships between human beings and the surrounding world. He used geometric principles – his passion for geometry was born out of his interest in mathematics and (Greek) philosophy – as the basis for harmony. Verheyen never gave up on traditional media and materials such as the canvas, paint, and brushes to search for the essence of our nature.

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Lucio Fontana

(c)Lucio Fontana

Concetto Spaziale, 1958

Design Museum Den Bosch, the Netherlands

Ceramics , 17.8 x 14.5 x 14.5 cm

For Jef Verheyen, Lucio Fontana is something of

a shaman: his work has an invocatory, enchanting

power. In this sketch, Verheyen makes a link

between Fontana’s perforated ceramics and the

pre-Columbian art of the Mixtecs and Tarascans.

Feathers were inserted into the holes in their

ceramics. The sketch illustrates how Verheyen’s

thought process connects different cultures from

all over the world and from past to present. Fontana

thus enhances Verheyen’s desire to evoke the

mystical and the universal. Meanwhile, Verheyen also

continues to experiment with ceramics. These square

baked tiles are like monochrome miniature paintings.