Gaston DE MEY

1933 – 2015

After his training at the Art Academy of Eeklo, Gaston De Mey (°1933) painted mainly figuratively. Gradually the focus in his work shifted to abstraction to finally -in 1968- lead to a radical break. From then on, the smallest parts of the written language, the 26 letters of the alphabet, formed the core of all his works. He strips these letters of their original function, namely carriers of meaning through the word in which they appear, and uses them in their plastic individuality. By choosing this approach, De Mey ignores the “legibility” of his works: he does not write a story, but creates a reality in which the letter is assigned an autonomous function. In the beginning he strung the letter material together into short or long, straight or curved letter strips. He juxtaposed these letter bands in geometric constructions: rectangular or circular, H-shaped or cruciform, stadium-shaped or in the form of Romanesque arches… His later work is again characterized by a central mirror line. Despite the seeming chaos of letters and the deliberate illegibility, De Mey tries to establish a certain order through which his work ultimately radiates tranquility.

Gaston De Mey’s work can be found in the collections of museums such as Mu.Zee, the Groeninge Museum, the Muhka, the KMSK, the S.M.A.K. and the FeliXartMuseum.