Élévation rose – 1963

Ink and wash on paper
224 x 153 cm
Signed and dated lower right
Signed, titled, and dated on verso

Provenance:
Private collection, Antwerp

Published:
Karel Geirlandt, Jan Hoet, Francine-Claire Legrand, France Borel, Françoise Knops-Mortier, Antoine Mortier, Lannoo, Tielt, 1989, p.39, 41 (ill.)
Camille Brasseur, Antoine Mortier. La Transfiguration du réel, Prisme Éditions, Brussels, 2012, p.165 (ill.)

Exhibited:
XXXII Venice Biennale, Belgian Pavilion, 1964 (label on verso)

This large-scale work belongs to a mature phase of Antoine Mortier's practice, in which figuration is reduced to a set of essential signs while retaining a clear point of departure in the human body. Although fully abstract in appearance, the composition suggests the structure of a female torso. This motif recurs throughout the artist’s oeuvre as a generative source rather than a descriptive end.
Mortier’s approach is characterized by a tension between underlying figuration and its dissolution into gesture. The image is constructed through bold, black ink contours that establish a forceful armature, within which modulated ink washes create a sense of volume and internal rhythm. This interplay between line and wash produces a spatial ambiguity: forms appear at once contained and expansive, oscillating between corporeal reference and autonomous abstraction. The work exemplifies the artist’s sustained exploration of the body as a site of transformation, where the initial motif is both present and surpassed. Its scale reinforces the physicality of the gesture, allowing the composition to unfold with a measured yet expansive energy.