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attempted ‘homecoming ’, the moment when every thing falls into place, is never permanently attained in Buedts’ universe. The equilibrium achieved always seems precarious and temporary. A number of Raf Buedts’ personal references and memories played a crucial role in the develop ment of his work, such as his uncle’s mill with the impressive, ingenious triangular connections of the roof support; the heavy charcoal-like lines on the mill’s beams and the sensuality of the flour with which they were covered ; the slopes of the Flemish Ardennes in Mater, unfolding continually to the eye in one constellation after another ; the bicycle rides through the Waas countryside, full of ploughed fields. The question that confronted Buedts was how
Tafelvlak [Table Surface], 2000 Olieverf op doek / Oil on canvas, 40 x 53 cm Privécollectie / Private collection
Frank Maes
to capture such spatial experiences in two or three dimensions. But other personal references and recollections were at work as well : The artist’s memory of his mother and how, as a seamstress, she unrolled fabric and drew patterns. This was a highly specific language, illegible to the layman, consisting of various unbroken and dotted coloured lines, looking almost like a form of cartography, a drawing system for transferring the three-dimensional to flat paper. It was not an existing reality that was being mapped here, however, but a new space laid out in the imagination. And finally, there was the nocturnal, elusive world under the tabletop, which Buedts continu ally perceived and portrayed as oval. That oval is