Zonder titel, 2008

Toon Verhoef (1946, The Netherlands) could be called an "artist's artist": a master who has been of great influence on his colleagues and the rising generation of painters. His work is nothing less than a watershed in Dutch painting. Where that quality exactly lies is not easy to articulate. It has been said of his overwhelmingly gorgeous paintings that in them, the visual has slipped the bonds of the nameable. His complex and layered work is open and lucid; it depicts the art of painting in its true essence - a lively interplay of paint, composition and colors. The result is one purely at the service of the imagination. It is this very work that forms the prelude to the Art Space, because looking well at art gives one of the ultimate mental, almost physical experience!