As far back as the early nineteen-fifties, Bram Bogart has chosen resolutely and consequently for a form of personalized abstraction, which stimulated himself (on purpose) and the viewer (by surprise) to a physical experience of the art of painting. Since that time painting will be fundamentally a physical intercourse with paint and colour for Bram Bogart. The paint as a pure and, therefore spiritualized matter, as an autonomous substance, as a part of reality in itself. And the colour as an emotional accompaniment of that reality, as an accentuation of its sensory dimension.
By laying on the paint in thick impasto, its physicality shines out at us. It is as if the paint starts leading a life of its own, breaking loose from the support, powerfully and energetically freeing itself from the trammels of beautiful painting. Does the paint leave the painting? Or is it the artist who has decided to let his art of painting “be”, free and independent following the example of nature? Anyhow, the work contains numerous structural characteristics that find their connotations in the permanent growth of earth and nature: crumbly, rough, arid, unruly or smooth – and all these qualities in their particular relation to the light of the sun.
Van Gogh too already started to sculpture in the paint. Moreover, by the pulsating and rotating power of touch he points out the undisputed importance of the artist’s emotional and subjective drive. The artist as the creator and craftsman of the existential reconciliation between himself and his world. With the sun as the challenger of human energy. In the case of Bram Bogart, this touch of paint obtains an unseen monumentality and an almost obvious clarity. Gradually he identifies himself completely with the making and application of the paint. Furthermore, he progressively increases the colour intensity which, in his more monochrome works, results in an almost self-evident unity of paint, gesture and colour. Paint is matter is colour, united through the artist’s gesture and vision. As soon as this trinity is reached, the work has freed itself from its maker. It must be enchanting to be able to follow and experience this creating and working process from a close distance, and witness the preparation of the paint, determination of the colour, dosage of the volume, estimation of the mass. It must be fascinating to see how the matter responds to the artist’s gesture and physical strength. How eventually an organized image is brought about and, finally, brought to a “standstill”.
At that moment, Bram Bogart’s art of painting acquires its absolute height of independence, defined as a and subtle detachment in the presence of maker and viewer. So that the picture situates itself between both of them. The precise point between maker and viewer is further accentuated by the stillness encased in the coagulated structures. Nevertheless, they keep the fullness of their dynamism, as well as the vibrations in the tensions and contact points between the contrasting picture components. And in each work over and over again, he stars to struggle with the contrasts between rough and smooth, crumpled and ironed, in and out, black and white, blue and yellow, constructive and emotional…
Again and again each work represents a new “beginning”, each work becomes a “thing”. Therefore, these works speak from their own harmonic realm, in which a fluctuating equilibrium is reached between repose and movement, attraction and repulsion, domination and giving in. Because of the coagulated, speechless balance of form and colour, the total of his works transcend every short-sighted conformation of what the artist pretends for himself. With Bram Bogart we are not facing works that beam with geniality for the benefit of the maker. On the contrary, they rise to the level of neutrality and anonymity, the two self-based, self-supporting pillars of a kind of works that can be discussed as a total of independent works of art. I know few works that can reconcile such a presence and clarity to a secret behind their existence that cannot be resolved.
— Jan Hoet