• Artists
  • Gallery
  • Exhibitions
  • Art fairs
  • News
  • Not for profit
    • Newsletter
    • Version française
    • English version

Kees Visser

  • Introduction
  • CV (PDF)
  • News
  • Documentation

Far away from the art schools and movements of which he nevertheless was a keen observer, Kees Visser (b. 1948) has gradually created his own self-taught path over the last forty years. Parting from his native Holland, where in the mid-1970s he had worked in a vein oscillating between abstraction and Fluxus, Kees Visser left to settle in Iceland, where he lived for nearly twenty years. In Iceland, he was not only in contact with a nature that profoundly marks his work, but also an incredibly cosmopolitan art scene where artists such as Dieter Roth, Donald Judd, Richard Serra, Roni Horn, Hrein Fridffinson, Adrian Schiess, Gunther Umberg, Richard Long, etc. often crossed paths.

Co-founder with a group of Icelandic artists of the Living Art Museum in Reykjavik in 1978, Kees Visser became a prominent figure in the Icelandic art world, present in most of the public and private collections in the country. Invited for a residency in Paris in the mid-1990s, it was then in France that Kees Visser developed his work on series, shape and color, creating the monochrome paintings with crystalline qualities for which he is known for today. Beyond these works, which he executes almost exclusively on paper, it is the very space of the presentation itself that Kees Visser progressively integrates into his work as a colorist. He expands the possibilities of the presentation of his paintings by juxtaposition, superimposing them, placing them on the floor, lining them up under glass displays several meters long, reconstituting them as mosaics, etc. It is this concentration on the space in its broadest sense that has led Kees Visser at the same time to create on-site works, taking the form of large murals or monumental installations as he recently did in a chapel in Thouars (2006), at the Eglise Saint Eustache in Paris (2007) and for the Musée Bourdelle (2010).

The Matisse Museum in Le Cateau-Cambrésis gave him a retrospective exhibition in the summer of 2009. In 2012, the National Gallery of Iceland in conjunction with the Living Art Museum of Reykjavik will present two important exhibitions of Kees Visser. His works are in several international private and public collections (Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, National Gallery of Iceland, Living Art Museum in Reykjavik, MOMA in New York, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Bibliothèque Kandinsky at the Centre Pompidou, FRAC Bretagne, FNAC, etc.). The gallery has dedicated two solo shows to his work in 2009 and 2013.


Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2019, Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne
©Lucie Jean
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2019, Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne
©Lucie Jean
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2019, Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne
©Lucie Jean
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2019, Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne
©Lucie Jean
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2019, Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne
©Lucie Jean
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2019, Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne
©Lucie Jean
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2019, Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne
©Lucie Jean
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2019, Eenwerk, Amsterdam
Blue Green Red, 2019, acrylic on paper, 390 x 250 cm
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2013, Institut Néerlandais, Paris
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2013, National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2013, National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2013, Institut Néerlandais, Paris
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2013, National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2011, Art Amsterdam (Cédrick Eymenier, Bertrand Lamarche, Kees V)
Kees Visser
i64, 2010, acrylic on paper and aluminium, 4,50 X 1,50m, unique artwork
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2008, Philippe Panetier Gallery, Nîmes
Kees Visser
Q series, exhibition view, Quartier, Quimper, 2007
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, 2005, CAC, Bouvet Ladubay, Saumur
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, CAC Bouvet Ladubay, 2005
Kees Visser
Exhibition view, Tent, Rotterdam, 2004
Kees Visser
Annotated catalogue view, F series, painting and pencil on graph paper, 42 x 29,5 cm
Kees Visser
Annotated catalogue view, K series, painting and pencil on graph paper, 1992
Kees Visser
Synapse, 1973
acrylic on framed
Frame: 75 x 104 cm

Collection privée
Kees Visser
Sans titre (cube painting), 1973
acrylic on canvas, six panels, metal hinge
Frame: 245 x 105 cm
Kees Visser
Sans titre (cube painting), 1973
acrylic on canvas, six panels, metal hinge
Frame: 245 x 105 cm

Detail
Kees Visser
Wall painting , 2002
painting and pencil on paper
Frame: 96 x 63 cm
Kees Visser
T 30 / 62 , 2006
painting on paper
46 x 64 cm
Kees Visser
Shift, 1976
painting and pencil on paper
Frame: 64 x 63 cm
Kees Visser
Circle-reversed parameters, 1992
painting on paper
Kees Visser
Shift Rouge, 1976
painting on paper
Frame: 51 x 73 cm
Kees Visser
Der Fabricant Anton Beilharz und das Theresle, 1977
Printed book and braiding
Frame: 11 x 7,5 cm
Kees Visser
Mondlicht #27, 2013
Paper Weaves
Frame: 18,5 cm x 23 cm
Kees Visser
Mondlicht #27, 2013
Paper Weaves
Frame: 18,5 cm x 23 cm

Detail
Kees Visser
Mondlicht #40, 2013
Paper Weaves
Frame: 18,5 cm x 23 cm
Kees Visser
Mondlicht #40, 2013
Paper Weaves
Frame: 18,5 cm x 23 cm

Detail
Kees Visser
Triptyque H-53, H-61 et H-65, 2010
painting on paper mounted on aluminium
Frame: 135 x 100 cm (each)
TOP